This article is dumb for a lot of reasons, so I just want to focus on one:
The Journal of Physiology has conducted research that even the short time PED users can have lasting positive impacts for nearly a decade after.
Even ignoring the fact that this sentence is missing a verb (at least), what does that research say? Well, if you follow it through the BBC article and on to the actual study itself, here's the big reveal:
Female mice were treated with testosterone propionate for 14 days, inducing a 66% increase in the number of myonuclei and a 77% increase in fibre cross-sectional area. Three weeks after removing the drug, fibre size was decreased to the same level as in sham treated animals, but the number of nuclei remained elevated for at least 3 months (>10% of the mouse lifespan). At this time, when the myonuclei-rich muscles were exposed to overload-exercise for 6 days, the fibre cross-sectional area increased by 31% while control muscles did not grow significantly.
What that says: After being 'roided up, these mice's mousy muscles increased (by one measure) 71%. Three weeks later, without being re-roided, those muscles still showed a 31% increase (so we've dropped off by 55% after 3 weeks). One of the researchers on record in that study says, "['Roidin' hard] would be sufficient to give you this long term effect. I think it could last 10 years but I don't have the data to back that up. It would be my speculation yes". So, in conclusion: 'roided mice maintain 45% of their 'roid-ripped mouse-bods 3 weeks later. One of the researchers speculates that this data suggests that human 'roiders will maintain a noticable 'roid-advantage for 10 years. I don't know enough to know if he is full of shit, but I will say I'm not really sure how the one follows from the other, and the article never explains.
By the time this information trickles down to Medium (who surely read the original study, and not just the one researcher's speculation in a BBC article, right?), here's where we end up:
So even after Marte returns from his 80-game suspension he will still be the .300 hitting, base stealing, centerfield roaming, elite athlete he was due, in part, to his drug-assisted enhanced performance. Even in time lost, steroids offer the allure of enhanced performance with a fraction of the effects of long-term injury that numerous athletes combat. Time lost is time off, not time in uncertain rehab.
This is bad research. This is research which I would mark off college freshmen for producing.
That's it. That's all I've got to say.