Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Heidi Krieger proved herself one of the world's top athletes in the 1980s, winning medal after medal in the shot put for East Germany.
Andreas Krieger says his body changed soon after he began taking what coaches said were vitamins.

Andreas Krieger says his body changed soon after he began taking what coaches said were vitamins.

Now, the former sports star looks disdainfully at the awards, dismissing them as "doping medals" and honors that turned a woman into a man.

Heidi Krieger, the 1986 European women's shot-put champion, became Andreas Krieger after a sex-change operation in 1997. He says he had been fed so many steroids by his coaches without his knowledge that physical and emotional problems began.

The young woman's physique changed drastically, as did her feelings. "I felt much more attracted to women and just felt like a man. But I knew I was not lesbian," Krieger told CNN.

Her coaches said they were giving her vitamin pills, but they were actually feeding her Oral-Turinabol anabolic steroids. Video Watch how Krieger's body changed »

Krieger is among an estimated 10,000 East German athletes thought to have been given performance-enhancing drugs to help build their country into a sports powerhouse.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the German Democratic Republic was one of the most successful Olympic Games nations. But after the fall of Soviet Communism, it was revealed just how much steroids were fueling the medal machine. Sports leaders, including Manfred Ewald, the head of East Germany's National Olympic Committee from 1973 until 1990, were convicted in the doping programs.

Krieger, who is now married and runs an army surplus store, says he has taken his life into his own hands and does not want to be seen as a victim.

But he and other former East German athletes tricked by their coaches are worried that too little has been learned from their plight.

Doping remains a major issue in sports, and many drug tests will be conducted in Beijing, China, as officials try to catch any cheats hoping to go undetected and get Olympic glory.

Experts say the next step for sportsmen and women looking for an illegal boost to physical performance could be gene therapy -- so-called "gene doping."

Sports physician Willi Heepe said gene therapy means the body will basically dope itself.

If that happens, "the human monster will be a reality," he told CNN.
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Krieger is worried that the pressure to win could create new victims.

"If today's athletes say they want to take the risk, they really don't know what risk they are taking," he said.

I couldn't read the article but I got through what you quoted.

Ya. Not sure about that one. The steriods that are used by those athletes would be different from those used for hormonal changes (like gender transitioning). It may have given some of the side-effects but made her a man? Unlikely.

And ya. They shouldn't be using it in the first place. I don't understand what's happened to the concept of "all things being equal, let's see who's the best".

All of that happened a while back and in a totalitarian country. The steroids might have been different, stronger and in higher doses.

I scratched my head too.

I wonder if he might not have been transgender anyway and just not have known it. People are strongly attached to their gender, so I found it odd that his reasoning seemed to be "oh well, I wasn't planning on it, but since I'm most of the way there anyway, I might as well be a man".

I have an old m->f friend who impressed on me that sexual identity can often be distinct from sexual orientation as well. Testosterone drives sexual desire for both of the sexes and is used as therapy for low sex drive straight women. Pumping up T levels doesn't seem to be able to change a person's sexual orientation. Who knows, maybe past a certain level up or down it may allow something hidden to come out.

Yeah I don't believe it either. In the before pic she was already looking pretty butch.
The thing with steroids is you gotta worry about the long term affects.. Brittle bones.. Kidney and liver problems.. Cancer... heart disease.

I watched a show about steroids and there were guys in their early 40s suffering major heart attacks from using steroids in their 20s.

I don't understand what's happened to the concept of "all things being equal, let's see who's the best".

The full article is quoted above and the link works fine.

Some soy protein should reverse the process.

On a more serious note, I'm curious how the brain is transformed in cases like this, or cases where you hear about "a man born a woman" or the opposite. The structure of the brain is different between (clearly defined) males and females. I believe this difference is triggered by hormone levels of the developing fetus, in the same way the sex organs decide what to make themselves.

Basically I'm curious if gender identity is as simple as on-going hormone balances, or if there are detectible structural differences.

Despite my soy comment, I do feel sorry for this person. If he/she was truly ignorant of what these "vitamins" were it's a pretty horrible situation.

Ya. Not sure about that one. The steriods that are used by those athletes would be different from those used for hormonal changes (like gender transitioning). It may have given some of the side-effects but made her a man? Unlikely.

MtF have Female Neuron Numbers paper -- http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/2034