In quite a few illnesses, medical practitioners prescribe anabolic steroids. Use of it is however suggested with caution since the drug is known to show harmful side effects. Ironically, anabolic steroids are used more for non-medical reasons than otherwise, and this has been so ever since its utility for performance enhancement has become widely known among athletes and body-builders. Glossing over what prompts people resorting to anabolic steroids' use - or is it misuse - here are some main reasons:

1. Professional athletes in their attempts to over-perform use anabolic steroids. One remembers Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson winning the 1988 Olympic 100-meter dash in Seoul to make a new world record, but later stripped of the title when tests revealed that he partook banned steroid, stanozolol.

2. Men suffering from behavioral syndromes, believing they look small and insignificant even though they are muscular, use anabolic steroids. Similarly, women with this problem take the drug as they tend to think they are flabby, though in actual they are quite lean and muscular.

3. It is seen that people who have suffered physical or sexual abuse in the past often take recourse to the drug with the belief that it will make them look stronger and abler thus discouraging any future attacks.

4.Adolescent youth get a kick out of doing risky things, like driving fast, drinking atrociously and suchlike. They are easily attracted to anabolic steroids' use.

Are anabolic steroids not used for medicinal purpose? But yes they are. Some examples are:

1. Helping patients gain weight after a severe illness, injury, or continuing infection. They may also be administered when patients do not gain or maintain normal weight because of unexplained medical reasons.

2. Treating certain types of anemia and also some kinds of breast cancer in women.

3. Treating hereditary angioedema that causes swelling of face, arms, legs, throat, windpipe, bowels, or sexual organs.