The Side Effects of Steroids | Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller

I think some of the damage I did is probably permanent as far as like an enlarged heart. Yeah. I don't want to go back and bodybuild. I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for how long can I live, right? I mean if you look around this office, who's here? It's old man. It's like why am I here? I'm freaking 37. I mean something's wrong, right?

Jeff has been under the care of a cardiologist for the past year. Ever since doctors treating his steroid infection also discovered signs of heart failure. So, Doctor, because Jeff took testosterone for so many years— right. Now his body doesn't produce it naturally. And he actually has to take testosterone to stay healthy. Right.

This is the unfortunate irony for guys that are looking to become superhuman per se. They end up in a point where, again, they obliterate their body's own ability to produce testosterone. Today, Jeff will be getting the results to see if his heart has bounced back to normal.

So there's two main things that we are evaluating with that echo. One is your systolic function, which is the squeezing function. And that was the one that was mildly reduced last time you were here. That actually does not look significantly different. OK. So it still looks a little bit sluggish. Yep.

But there's another parameter that we look at, which is the relaxation function of the heart. Right. And that was also quite abnormal last time you got here. That looks significantly better. OK. OK. You know we're not at the point where I'd say your heart looks normal, unfortunately. Right.

I think you should sort of get your mind around the fact that you're probably going to be on long-term medication. I worry about Jeff's longevity. His heart actually hasn't bounced back to normal. And the longer we see it, that sort of suggests that something permanent has happened there. And if he started taking steroids again? Not a good idea.

We heard from a lot of people that say that there is a safe way of doing this. The people that have gotten hurt is because they didn't know what they were doing, and they were taking too much, or—but there is actually a safe way to do this. Right. What do you think?

I think those people are kidding themselves. The best data that we have are autopsy studies. That means someone died. Jeff, frankly, is lucky. There's lots and lots of case reports of young guys having heart attacks and having strokes, sudden death. So your first symptom is dying.