A perspective on anabolics

Abstract

Extract

The word anabolic is an adjective and used as such it describes the property of a substance to promote in living cells the process of building complex substances from simple ones. Thus anabolic steroids are those which favour synthetic metabolism. The best known of these is testosterone, an androgen. Other anabolic steroids may be distinctly oestrogenic and some anabolic chemicals are not steroid hormones at all. Most anabolic substances are complex in theiractivity and, depending upon their primary nature, have the potential to produce undesirable physiological and/or behavioural side effects.