A survey by the University of Glamorgan found as many as seven out of 10 people using gyms in the region take drugs to help their training.

More inactive lifestyles mean people are turning to steroids to get the shape they want, the study author says.

The research is unveiled on the BBC Radio Wales programme Eye on Wales.

Professor Bruce Davies carried out the research in gyms dedicated to heavy lifting in the south Wales valleys area, and says the findings replicate those of studies carried out in other parts of Wales.

He said: “We found by going into big lifting gyms that 70% of the attendants were using anabolic steroids.

“We've seen very similar studies in north Wales, in Cardiff and in Swansea, so I suspect there's a significant number of people using anabolic steroids in Wales.”

Side-effects of the drugs can include baldness, impotence, developing milk-producing breasts in men and acne, and in misuse of anabolic steroids can cause heart and liver failure.

Professor Davies believes use has risen in former mining areas because of social changes.

“Gone are the days when you could get admiration by going down a mine -you didn't have to prove anything,” he said.

“Sadly those days are gone and now people are seeking other ways to gain admiration.

“When you think about it these days, most people are semi-debauched, we're not a very active society so the only way to acquire the muscles these people want is to weight train using anabolic steroids.”

Dealing

One 20-year-old weight-training enthusiast, who gained five stone in three years after taking steroids, thinks the risks of the drug have been overstated.

“It's down to the individual - if your diet's good and your training's good you should be fine,” he said.

“Ok, something could go wrong inside but that could happen to a normal person walking down the street. A lot of the risks are just word of mouth and I think a lot of things are dysfunction erectile impotence totally out of perspective.”

Possession and use of steroids is not illegal, provided it is a “medicinal form”, but dealing steroids is.

Katy Swaine, head of legal services at drug charity Release, thinks there is some ambiguity about what erectile dysfunction hormone therapy a medicinal form of the drug.

“The law on steroids still remains in a slightly unclear state and could certainly do with herbal hydrocodone impotence now,” she said.

The research, entitled Steroid and Erectile dysfunction drug medication
Medicine - Abuses in the Recreational Gym user - a regional study, questioned 210 people at 100 heaving lifting gyms in the former Mid Glamorgan county area in 2005.

Eye on Wales is broadcast on BBC Radio Wales on Monday 3 July at 1800 BST.

NOTE: Side-effects of the drugs can include baldness, impotence, developing milk-producing breasts in men and acne, and in misuse of anabolic steroids can cause heart and liver failure.

The exercises were found to help men with erectile dysfunction as much as taking in Viagra.

The researchers say the findings mean men have an alternative to drug therapy.

For around 50 years, women have been advised to perform pelvic floor exercises to strengthen their muscles for childbirth.

The pelvic floor is a “hammock” of muscles which support the bowel and bladder.

Pelvic floor, or Kegel, exercises involve clenching the muscles you would use to prevent yourself urinating.

This latest research indicates it is also important for men to maintain the muscle tone and function of their pelvic floor muscles with the exercises.

Home exercises

The team from the University of the West of England in Bristol studied 55 men with an average age of 59 who had experienced erectile dysfunction for at least six months.

The men, all patients at the Somerset Nuffield Hospital, Taunton, Somerset, were given five weekly sessions of pelvic floor exercises and assessed at three and six months, and asked to practise the exercises daily at home.

It was found 40% of the men regained normal erectile function - some of who had severe erectile dysfunction, and another 35% showed some ed meds
.

Two thirds of the men had said they also had problems with urination. These improved significantly after they began the exercises.

Dr Grace Dorey, a specialist continence physiotherapist who carried out the research, told BBC News Online: “The exercises were found to be equally as effective as taking Viagra.

“Pelvic floor exercises improve function in a physical way, in a more natural way.

“Men should be doing preventative exercise. It really is use it or lose it.”

She said men should be exercising their pelvic floor exercises from puberty onwards.

Strength

A spokesperson for the Impotence Association said: “The value and impotence youth of pelvic floor exercises should not be cialis strong viagra vs
when considering the management of sexual problems such as impotence and premature erectile dysfunction impotence medication.

“The exercises are thought to strengthen the muscles that surround the penis and improve the blood supply in the pelvis, which is an important factor in relation to erectile dysfunction.”

The Impotence Association helpline number is 0208 767 7791.

The move comes after an audit found 198 convicts in New York state had been reimbursed by Medicaid for the drug between January and March 2000.

Their crimes included offences against children as young as two.

The Medicaid programme, whose cost is shared by states and the federal government, provides health care for the poor.

The federal Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services said they should not pay for erectile dysfunction drugs for sex offenders.

Spokesman Gary Karr said “states already have the power to determine if a drug is not medically impotence for a certain patient or certain class of patients”, the Trimix impotence
Press news agency reported.

“Public risk”

The New York audit, impotence herb by Comptroller Alan Hevesi, did not cover other states, but Mr Hevesi said states are required by law to include Viagra in Medicaid programmes covering trimix impotence
drugs when medically necessary.

He said the policy raised “serious policy considerations and has the potential to place the public at risk” and asked the government to take administrative action or amend the Medicaid law.

On Monday, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist said that Medicaid had paid $93,000 to provide Viagra to 218 sex offenders in that state over the last four years, AP reported.

New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton have both indicated they back a change in policy.

Sen Schumer said: “It is just mind-boggling to think that Level 3 sexual offenders can get Viagra, which may indeed help them perpetrate other horrible crimes.

“Giving convicted sex offenders government-funded Viagra is like giving convicted murderers an assault rifle when they get out of jail,” Schumer said.

Dr Moloy Prakash Sahu of the Wellman Clinic, 57 Harley Street, gave creams and pills which had “no evidence” of treating sexual problems, it heard.

He failed to check medical histories or possible psychological problems, said expert witness Laurence Sandler.

Dr Sahu denies serious professional misconduct. The hearing continues.

Mr Sandler, of Wycombe General Hospital, said he had examined patient records and notes made by Dr Sahu and could not understand the drugs and other preparations that had been prescribed.

He noted Dr Sahu had spent little time talking through the sex problems of his patients before prescribing.

“I spend a long time talking to them. It is very difficult but you have to get a rapport with them. It is a very sensitive problem,” said Mr Sandler.

Psychological factors

Mr Sandler said the cause of low libido was often psychological, or caused by factors such as high blood pressure, smoking and drinking.

But Dr Sahu had failed to discuss this in detail with the patients, he said.

There was an average of a three month course of treatment made up of vitamins and washes for each man and the cost would be in the region of 1,500 to 2,000 Lynn Griffin, for the GMC

Mr Sandler also warned about Dr Sahu's prescriptions for the sex drug Viagra.

“There is a significant failure rate. It isn't a catch-all. It doesn't work all the time.”

The hearing was held after three patients at the clinic, which charges up to 2,000 a time for treatment, complained to the GMC.

Earlier, it was told that one patient who complained that a 12 week course of treatment had failed to work was “flabbergasted” by an invitation to sign up for another course.

Another was prescribed a drug which, mixed with an anti-depression drug he was already taking, could have proved fatal.

That patient was also treated for a condition he did not suffer.

'True purpose'

Lynn Griffin, for the GMC, said Dr Sahu targeted “vulnerable men” suffering impotence problems to earn “ridiculous amounts of money”.

She said the doctor's “deference” to non-medically qualified members of the clinic's staff erectile dysfunction and viagra
the “true purpose” of the establishment.

That “was to get vulnerable men to part with money for treatment which was not effective and certainly overpriced,” she said.

This clinic appears to have a standard form of treatment which is meted out regardless of the condition presented by the patient Lynn Griffin GMC

Dr Sahu prescribed a range of vitamins, herbal washes, creams and other drugs which were on the whole “levitra and impotence“, she said.

Often his contact with patients was “minimal”, while other staff persuaded them to sign up for treatments.

Ms Griffin also said the price of the treatments appeared excessive.

“There was an average of a three month course of treatment made up of vitamins and washes for each man and the cost would be in the region of 1,500 to 2,000,” she said.

Charges denied

She said despite each patient suffering a range of problems, the men were given similar treatment.

“This clinic appears to have a standard form of treatment which is meted out regardless of the condition presented by the patient.

“For most patients the prescribing was inappropriate - the drugs would have been impotence problem uk and no matter how many washes and creams were given to these gentlemen along with these medications it would not have assisted their problem,” said Ms Griffin.

One patient told the hearing the clinic had since paid the costs of his treatment, plus interest, as a result of a small claims court ruling.

Dr Sahu, of Walthamstow, East London, denies 11 charges amounting to serious professional misconduct, arising from his treatment of patients at the clinic between July 2000 and June 2001.

Parents in parts of northern Pakistan told the BBC news website they feared an “American conspiracy” to cut the fertility of the next generation.

Pakistan is one of four countries the World Health Organisation (WHO) says is a source of polio.

The WHO has led a $196m-a-year campaign to control the disease in Pakistan.

At least 39 cases of polio were reported in 2006, 15 of them in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The NWFP and the tribal areas account for 20% of those targeted for immunisation.

Worldwide 1,902 cases of polio were reported during the year, a recent WHO report said.

A WHO meeting in Geneva last October heard that children paralysed by polio around the world were infected by viruses impotence in male from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria.

Radio rumours

The main opposition to the drive in Pakistan came from local clerics who run illegal FM radio channels in many NWFP districts and the tribal areas, say officials.

Amirullah Khan, a resident of NWFP's Swat district, quoted Maulana Fazlullah of a local FM channel as telling his listeners the vaccination drive was “a conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to stunt the population growth of Muslims”.

Maulana Fazlullah confirmed this to BBC, saying if the international organisations were keen on improving the health of the Muslims, they should help the erectile dysfunction hormone therapy
patients in the area.

Last year samples of the vaccine were laboratory-tested after a petition in Peshawar High Court alleged they contained oestrogen.

The hormone was not found, said Dr Waheed Khan, a health official.

But the FM channels have won many supporters in the more conservative areas of NWFP and the tribal region, officials have said.

Vaccine teams beaten up

A WHO report for 2006 said 66 localities in these areas were not covered by the immunisation staff due to logistical problems, and coverage in 320 localities was “poor” because of the anti-vaccine acupuncture impotence treatment.

In some areas immunisation teams were beaten up by local people, officials said.

Elsewhere parents just refused to get their children immunised.

The WHO says global polio impotence system therapy vacuum efforts have reduced the annual incidence of polio worldwide from 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,902 in 2006.

But the NWFP health officials believe anti-vaccine propaganda may jeopardise WHO's aim of making the world polio-free.