Research
Hormonal
Recovery of adverse lipid profiles (HDL, Apo-A1, Lp(a)) after stopping AAS use is prolonged and depends on the duration of prior AAS use, with 14 weeks of use leading to slower normalization than 8 weeks.
If you stop using AAS, your cholesterol levels do not immediately return to normal. If you used steroids for 14 weeks, your 'bad' cholesterol markers may remain elevated for months, keeping your cardiovascular risk high long after you stop injecting.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Six weeks after AAS cessation, serum HDL-C, HDL2-C, Apo-A1, Apo-B, and Lp(a) had still not returned to baseline concentrations. Administration of AAS for 14 weeks was associated with slower recovery to pretreatment concentrations than administration for eight weeks.
Why this rating
Based on Study 1 data comparing 8-week and 14-week users.
Source
Effects of androgenic-anabolic steroids on apolipoproteins and lipoprotein (a)
Fred Hartgens et al. · British Journal of Sports Medicine · 2004
DOI 10.1136/bjsm.2003.000199
clinical_trial · n=35Cited 208×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Self-administration of polydrug androgenic-anabolic steroid (AAS) regimens for 8-14 weeks significantly decreases HDL-C, HDL2-C, HDL3-C, and Apo-A1, while increasing Apo-B, creating a highly atherogenic lipid profile.Good
- Androgenic-anabolic steroid administration significantly lowers serum Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] concentrations, which may have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk, although this benefit is offset by the adverse effects on other lipids.Good
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