A pilot wastewater-based epidemiology assessment of anabolic steroid use in Queensland, Australia
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Anabolic‐androgenic steroids are synthetic compounds prohibited due to their performance enhancing characteristics. The use of these substances is known to cause health‐related issues, which highlights the importance of being able to evaluate the scale of consumption by the general population. However, most available research on the analysis of anabolic steroids is focussed on animals and athletes in connection with doping. The potential of wastewater‐based epidemiology as an intelligence tool for the assessment of community level use of anabolic steroids is presented herein. A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for the analysis of ten anabolic‐androgenic steroids and 14 endogenous hormones in influent wastewater. The validated method was applied to sixteen 24‐hour composite wastewater influent samples that were collected over a period of five years from two wastewater treatment plants in Queensland, Australia. Nine investigated compounds were found to be present at concentrations between 14‐611 ng L‐1 which translated into 3‐104 mg excreted per 1000 individuals per day. It was concluded that the developed analytical method is suitable for the analysis of AAS in wastewater matrix. Additionally, both the inclusion of metabolites and further investigation into deconjugation by enzymatic hydrolysis would aid in understanding and evaluating community anabolic steroid use. For the first time, this study presents the application of wastewater‐based epidemiology on anabolic‐androgenic steroids in Australia.
Date Issued
2019-07
Date Acceptance
2019-03-15
Citation
Drug Testing And Analysis, 2019, 11 (7), pp.937-949
ISSN
1942-7603
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
937
End Page
949
Journal / Book Title
Drug Testing And Analysis
Volume
11
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Identifier
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065251716&partnerID=8YFLogxK
Subjects
LC–MS/MS anabolic-androgenic steroids endogenous hormones solid-phase extraction wastewater analysis
Notes
10.1002/dta.2591 Anabolic‐androgenic steroids are synthetic compounds prohibited due to their performance enhancing characteristics. The use of these substances is known to cause health‐related issues, which highlights the importance of being able to evaluate the scale of consumption by the general population. However, most available research on the analysis of anabolic steroids is focussed on animals and athletes in connection with doping. The potential of wastewater‐based epidemiology as an intelligence tool for the assessment of community level use of anabolic steroids is presented herein. A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for the analysis of ten anabolic‐androgenic steroids and 14 endogenous hormones in influent wastewater. The validated method was applied to sixteen 24‐hour composite wastewater influent samples that were collected over a period of five years from two wastewater treatment plants in Queensland, Australia. Nine investigated compounds were found to be present at concentrations between 14‐611 ng L‐1 which translated into 3‐104 mg excreted per 1000 individuals per day. It was concluded that the developed analytical method is suitable for the analysis of AAS in wastewater matrix. Additionally, both the inclusion of metabolites and further investigation into deconjugation by enzymatic hydrolysis would aid in understanding and evaluating community anabolic steroid use. For the first time, this study presents the application of wastewater‐based epidemiology on anabolic‐androgenic steroids in Australia.
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-03-22