Stanozolol and experimental atherosclerosis: atherosclerotic development and blood lipids during anabolic steroid therapy of New Zealand white rabbits.

Exogenous oestrogens have been shown to reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and reduce the severity of experimental atherosclerosis. In contrast, exogenous progestogens, testosterone and anabolic steroids have been shown to increase the level of LDL cholesterol and decrease the level of HDL cholesterol in man. We induced atheromatosis through cholesterol feeding of New Zealand White rabbits of 1% cholesterol (w/w) food supplementation for three months. Furthermore, control rabbits and cholesterol rabbits respectively, were given stanozolol 5 mg per day orally for the first 6 weeks and thereafter 10 mg per day. We found no significant influence of the anabolic steroid stanozolol either on the extent of atherosclerotic involvement or on HDL or LDL cholesterol. However, we could not exclude an influence of stanozolol on the development of atherosclerosis because of the finding that two out of 10 stanozolol-treated rabbits on normal diet developed macroscopic atherosclerosis compared to none out of 72 rabbits of the same age from previous studies given the same normal diet (p = 0.013).