WHY DID SEAU COMMIT SUICIDE?
The football world was in shock yesterday at the news of Junior Seau’s suicide.
And the speculation about what might have caused his mental problems began immediately.
Virtually all of the talk was about the possibility that multiple concussions may have caused damage to his brain that led to depression.
That could very well turn out to be the case.
You’ll be hearing a lot about that in the next few weeks.
What you won’t be hearing much, if at all, is speculation that steroids or withdrawal from them could have played a role.
If the NFL wants some good to come out of the tragedy, it needs to make that a part of the discussion.
“As with corticosteroids (Alcena & Alexopoulos 1985; Alpert & Seigerman 1986; Amatruda et al. 1965; Byny 1976; Dixon & Christy 1980; Judd et al. 1983; Kaufmann et al. 1982), increasing attention and discussion is being focused on the withdrawal effects that athletes encounter when they cease use of anabolic-androgenic steroids. Interestingly, many of the same effects attributed to anabolic-androgenic steroid use are alleged to occur following anabolic-androgenic steroid cessation. Purported withdrawal effects include mood swings, violent behaviour, rage and depression, possibly severe enough to lead to thoughts of suicide (Brower et al. 1989a,b 1990; Goldman et al. 1984; Editorial 1989). Pope and Katz (1988) report that 5 of their subjects (12%) developed major depression while withdrawing from anabolic-androgenic steroids. Duncan and Shaw (1985) suggest that weight and fluid loss may worsen (or be the cause of) the impending depression.”
