PEDs Legal Use for Medical Treatment

By George Touliatos, MD

Q: Doc, I’ve been busted with drostanolone plus oxandrolone in a drug test; I’m a martial arts fighter. But the supplier said he sold me testosterone instead. How can I justify their use, legally?

A: In order to declare any use of ergogenic substance (PEDs), you have to justify their use medically for treatment purposes. In your case, drostanolone (known as Masteron) is a compound given for breast cancer (before aromatase inhibitors (AIs) were available). It seems that your dealer faked testosterone propionate with drostanolone propionate. The problem is that even if you were a patient being treated for breast cancer, this particular medication is not available in your country (Greece). Masteron was sold in pharmacies of Europe (Belgium), hence you’re not allowed to use it – unless you can prove at the trial that there was not other alternative treatment for your case. That’s something that stands no chance, since SERMs and AIs are firsthand options. The same occurs for oxandrolone. Administered in wasting syndrome (HIV, COVID, cancer) and burns, it seems highly unlikely that an athlete suffers from cachexia. However, there’s a small window for legal use of Anavar under a hormonal panel (HPTA). As a DHT derivative, oxandrolone is able to bind tightly to SHBG and crush the protein carrier, liberating more free testosterone. Therefore, we can conclude that Anavar is able to act as a libido enhancer under low sex drive – this is determined by the level of SHBG that has to be over the range (>80) and suppress free testosterone <50% levels. Again, Anavar is not manufactured in your country, so the only case you could make to convince the judge for its use is to show evidence that there was not alternative medication at that time. Unfortunately for you, mesterolone is available in pharmacies and can do the job of DHT derivatives – meaning that a smarter choice would have been the use of a TRT dose plus Proviron as a plan of HRT in men. The use of doping as part of medical treatment is permitted under certain concentrations in the serum, in order to avoid their ergogenic benefit. That’s something that happens with salbutamol (aerolin inhaler). The beta-2 agonist enhances VO2 max, given in asthma, as long it’s in low doses.

WATCH EPISODE 203 OF ASK DR TESTOSTERONE: "WHAT IS TREN COUGH?" 

George Touliatos, MD is an author, lecturer, champion competitive bodybuilder and expert in medical prevention regarding PED use in sports. Dr. Touliatos specializes in medical biopathology and is the medical associate of Orthobiotiki.gr and Medihall.gr, Age Management and Preventive Clinics in Athens, Greece. Heis the author of four Greek books on bodybuilding, has extensively developed articles for www.anabolic.org and is the medical associate for the book “Anabolics, 11th Edition” (2017). Dr. Touliatos has been a columnist for the Greek editions of MuscleMag and Muscular Development magazines, and has participated in several seminars across Greece and Cyprus, making numerous TV and radio appearances, doing interviews in print and online. His personal website is https://gtoul.com/