Steroids & Young Men / Vice

I wrote about the use of steroids by young UK men for Vice:

In April this year, former Love Island contestant Tom Powell live-streamed his breast reduction operation in an effort to reduce the stigma around enlarged male breast tissue. Gynecomastia is estimated to affect anywhere from 30 to 70 per cent of males at some stage of their lives. And “gyne”, as it’s commonly known, is not only an unwelcome (and ironic) side-effect of anabolic-androgenic - that is, muscle-building and masculinising - steroids: it can also be caused by other hormonal disruptors such as alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, obesity, puberty (usually temporarily) and old age. But Powell says his gyne was “99 percent” likely due to steroids.

Fitness coach Powell was awake and talking throughout the procedure last month at the Cardiff branch of Signature Clinic, a cosmetic surgery group which for the past year has averaged 100 gynecomastia patients a month across its six locations in UK and Ireland. Original Geordie Shore cast member Jay Gardner, also now a fitness coach, was treated in Signature’s Manchester clinic in December 2021. April 2022 was a bumper month for the group with 170 such procedures performed, including Powell’s. Roughly 40 to 45 percent of Signature’s gynecomastia patients, says co-founder Christian Gotti, are users of Image- and Performance-Enhancing Drugs (IPEDs).

Read “‘SARM Goblins: The Young Men Hooked on Steroids” on Vice.