Which is, you know, how the old saying goes: Huge now, hugely in debt to insurance companies and modern medicine later. What’s six weeks of radiation treatment in exchange for six days of looking great on spring break?
You can’t put a price on that. But you can put an estimate on the likelihood that the creatine and androstenedione supplements you took to get jacked will give you testicular cancer. From Brown University:
Men who reported taking muscle-building supplements, such as pills and powders with creatine or androstenedione, reported a significantly higher likelihood of having developed testicular cancer than men who did not use such supplements, according to a new study in the British Journal of Cancer.
Moreover, said study senior author Tongzhang Zheng, the associated testicular germ cell cancer risk was especially high among men who started using supplements before age 25, those who used multiple supplements and those who used them for years.
Which is… you. Probably. Get thee to a specialist. So what are the odds that you sacrificed long-term health for short term gains? Pretty GD high.
After tallying their data and accounting for all those possible confounders, as well as age, race, and other demographics, the researchers found that the men who used supplements had a 1.65 odds ratio (a 65-percent greater risk) of having developed testicular cancer compared to the men who did not use supplements.
The study’s parameters for using a sup involved taking it once a week for at least a month, which we’ve all done. And if you did it when you were in college, you’re so fucked.
The odds ratios increased to 2.77 (a 177-percent greater risk) among men who used more than one kind of supplement, and to 2.56 among men who used supplements three years or longer. Men who started using supplements at age 25 or younger also had an elevated associated odds ratio of 2.21, the researchers calculated.
Sorry dudes.
But at least you can take solace in your sweet, sweet, sweet muscles, which will soon wither away because you can’t lift when the chemo infeebles you.