Quality controls

Some steroid drugs are designed for clinical use to combat muscle-wasting diseases, but are also used by athletes to improve their performance by increasing muscle strength or endurance. This study investigated the effect of one steroid drug on the number of times a weight could be lifted by healthy male subjects as a measure of endurance. The ratio of number of lifts performed with a steroid-injected arm versus a sham-injected control arm increased with the drug dose; the authors therefore concluded that the drug improved endurance.