Side effects in women include:

- hair loss

- male pattern baldness

- hypertrophy of the clitoris

- increased sex drive

- irregularities of the menstrual cycle

- development of masculine facial traits

- increased coarseness of the skin

- premature closure of the epiphysis

In countries where the use of these drugs is controlled, there is often a black market trade of smuggled or counterfeit drugs. The quality of these drugs may be poor and can cause health risks. In countries where anabolic steroids are strictly regulated, some have called for a regulatory relief. Steroids are available over-the-counter in some countries such as Thailand and Mexico.

Cheating at the Paralympic Games has caused scandals that have significantly changed the way in which the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) manages the events.

Testing for performance-enhancing drugs has become increasingly strict and more widespread throughout the Games, with powerlifting seeing the most positive results. Competitors without disabilities have also competed in some Paralympic Games, with the Spanish entry in the intellectually disabled basketball tournament at the 2000 Summer Paralympics being the most controversial.

Doping in Russian sports has a systemic nature. Russia has had 51 Olympic medals stripped for doping violations – the most of any country, four times the number of the runner-up, and more than a third of the global total. From 2011 to 2015, more than a thousand Russian competitors in various sports, including summer, winter, and Paralympic sports, benefited from a cover-up.

For every 200,000 live births, conjoined twins are born. Conjoined twins are identical and of the same sex one hundred percent of the time and are more common in females than in males. For surgical separations the survival rate of at least one twin surviving is approximately 75%.

Joseph Banda and Luka Banda (born January 23, 1997, in Lusaka, Zambia) are twin brothers who used to be conjoined. They were born joined at the back of the skull and faced in opposite directions. In 1997, Dr. Ben Carson led a team of 50 Zambian and South African specialists to separate the 11-month-old twins in a 22-hour operation. They did not share any organs, but shared intricate blood vessels that flowed into each other's brains. In 2001, the twins were fitted with artificial skulls to permanently close their heads, and are neurologically normal. In an interview, Dr. Carson stated about the operation:

They are residing in a low-cost/high-density area of Lusaka called Chilenje South.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is the main regulatory organization looking into the issue of the detection of gene doping. Both direct and indirect testing methods are being researched by the organization. Directly detecting the use of gene therapy usually requires the discovery of recombinant proteins or gene insertion vectors, while most indirect methods involve examining the athlete in an attempt to detect bodily changes or structural differences between endogenous and recombinant proteins.

Indirect methods are by nature more subjective, as it becomes very difficult to determine which anomalies are proof of gene doping, and which are simply natural, though unusual, biological properties. For example, Eero Mäntyranta, an Olympic cross country skier, had a mutation which made his body produce abnormally high amounts of red blood cells. It would be very difficult to determine whether or not Mäntyranta's red blood cell levels were due to an innate genetic advantage, or an artificial one.

Maria and Teresa Tapia (born April 8, 2010) were conjoined twins born in the Dominican Republic. The twins were joined by their lower chest and abdomen and were therefore classified as omphalopagus sharing a liver, pancreas, and a small portion of their small intestine. On November 7, 2011, the twins underwent a successful separation surgery at the Children's Hospital of Richmond in Virginia.

In sports where physical strength is favored, athletes have used anabolic steroids, known for their ability to increase physical strength and muscle mass. The drug mimics the effect of testosterone and dihydrotestosterone in the body. They were developed after Eastern Bloc countries demonstrated success in weightlifting during the 1940s. At the time they were using testosterone, which carried with it negative effects, anabolic steroids were developed as a solution. The drug has been used across a wide range of sports from football and basketball to weightlifting and track and field. While not as life-threatening as the drugs used in endurance sports, anabolic steroids have negative side effects, including:

The 2007 Tour de France was affected by a series of scandals and speculations related to doping. By the end of the Tour, two cyclists were dismissed for failing tests and the wearer of the yellow jersey was voluntarily retired by his team for lying about his whereabouts and missing doping tests. A fourth rider was confirmed to having used doping while in a training session prior to the 2007 Tour and a fifth rider failed tests late in the race, with his result being officially announced just after the end of the Tour. During the competition, two teams were asked to withdraw after at least one member was found to have doped.

The events generated criticism and a general distrustful attitude toward the sport of professional cycling from media and public opinion. The doping allegations also resulted in several team sponsors threatening to retire their support if events advanced further. Some media such as German TV channels ARD and ZDF left the Tour once the first scandals broke. Following the Tour's conclusion, the sport's governing bodies spoke out about ways to combat the prevalence of doping in cycling and key team sponsors elected to withdraw their support due to the reputational damage caused by the scandals. The 2007 Tour de France has been referred to as one of the most controversial Tours. After the end of the Tour, "The Times" of London ranked it 4th in its list of the top 50 sporting scandals.

The Lance Armstrong doping case was a doping investigation that led to American former professional road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and his eventual admission to the doping.

A 2016 review found that about 120 DNA polymorphisms had been identified in the literature related to some aspect of athletic performance, 77 related to endurance and 43 related to power. 11 had been replicated in three or more studies and six were identified in genome-wide association studies, but 29 had not been replicated in at least one study.

The 11 replicated markers were:

- Endurance:

- ACE Alu I/D (rs4646994) (Called ACE I)

- ACTN3 577X

- PPARA rs4253778 G,

- PPARGC1A Gly482;

- power/strength markers:

- ACE Alu I/D (rs4646994) (called ACE D)

- ACTN3 Arg577

- AMPD1 Gln12

- HIF1A 582Ser

- MTHFR rs1801131 C

- NOS3 rs2070744 T

- PPARG 12Ala

The six GWAS markers were:

- CREM rs1531550 A,

- DMD rs939787 T

- GALNT13 rs10196189 G

- NFIA-AS1 rs1572312 C,

- RBFOX1 rs7191721 G

- TSHR rs7144481 C

For much of the second phase of his career, Cyclist Lance Armstrong faced constant allegations of doping. Armstrong consistently denied allegations of doping until a partial confession during a broadcast interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013.

The International Convention against Doping in Sport is a multilateral UNESCO treaty by which states agree to adopt national measures to prevent and eliminate drug doping in sport.

States that agree to the Convention align their domestic rules with the World Anti-Doping Code, which is promulgated by the World Anti-Doping Agency. This includes facilitating doping controls and supporting national testing programmes; encouraging the establishment of "best practice" in the labelling, marketing, and distribution of products that might contain prohibited substances; withholding financial support from those who engage in or support doping; taking measures against manufacturing and trafficking; encouraging the establishment of codes of conduct for professions relating to sport and anti-doping; and funding education and research on drugs in sport.

There have been allegations of doping in the Tour de France since the race began in 1903. Early Tour riders consumed alcohol and used ether, among other substances, as a means of dulling the pain of competing in endurance cycling. Riders began using substances as a means of increasing performance rather than dulling the senses, and organizing bodies such as the "Tour" and the International Cycling Union (UCI), as well as government bodies, enacted policies to combat the practice.

Use of performance-enhancing drugs in cycling predates the Tour de France. Cycling, having been from the start a sport of extremes, whether of speed by being paced by tandems, motorcycles and even cars, or of distance, the suffering involved encouraged the means to alleviate it. Not until after World War II were sporting or even particularly health issues raised. Those came shortly before the death of Tom Simpson in the Tour de France of 1967. Max Novich referred to the Tour de France in a 1973 issue of "New York State Journal of Medicine" as "a cycling nightmare". In the eyes of a 1998 German observer:

When the Malays were asked why they thought that women were more likely to suffer from latah, they responded with the cultural explanation that women have less 'semangat' or soul substance. They also said women are simply easier to tease than men, and coupling these two together: latah becomes more readily observable and developed throughout recurrent provocation in women than in men. This also accounts for the higher prevalence of latah in lower status persons, as they are more vulnerable to abuse than others. The Malay also believe women are more susceptible because they lose more blood than men, through menstruation. Some Malay believe that excess tickling of a child will predispose them to latah later in life.

The onset of Latah is often associated with stress. In a study done by Tanner and Chamberland in 2001, a significant number of research participants had experienced a life stressor (such as a child or husband dying) just before becoming latah. Additionally, a large number of participants from many research studies have reported strange dreams occurring just before the onset of latah. These dreams usually had a sexual element to them, often involving penises or enlarged penises. According to Tanner and Chamberland, perhaps the dreams, although with variation, indicate some sort of dysfunction in a specific anatomical area. Exploring this further might lead to more insights as to the cause and/or cure of latah.

Osborne (2001) states that latah is a possible emotional outlet in a stifling culture. Winzeler’s believes that latah is less demeaning for women than it is for men, and that women actually have more freedom in society because they are not held to as strict of standards as men are. He argues that as men age, they become more concerned with personal dignity and poise while women become less so. Because of this, women feel more freedom to engage in latah behavior, while men do not.

A team from the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad conducted research in the affected regions and found out that the disease was confined to a dalit colony. They also found out that the disease was affecting people of all age groups and it was non-contagious and non-infectious. This research was further followed by research conducted over four years (1984–88) by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Study groups involving experts from different medical fields were formed and these groups visited the affected places to conduct experiments. They were also helped by the Health Department of Karnataka who also provided a team to assist them. Despite undertaking extensive research, the team could not come into any conclusion on the cause of the disease. The team wound up in 1988 and this was the first phase of their research. The second phase of the research by ICMR was started in the year 2001 under the leadership of S. S. Agarwal of the Sanjay Gandhi Post-graduate centre in Lucknow. Some of the activities in the second phase were to x-ray the patients and also study their family history to see if the disease was related to genetics. The study reported that Handigodu syndrome is a syndrome of familial spondyloepi(meta)physeal dysplasia. It is inherited as an autosomal dominant trait. All the presentations of the varied manifestation of the disease could be explained as being caused by defective development of bones as a result of monogenic disorder.

Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness or just sociogenic illness, is "the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss, or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic" cause. MPI is distinct from other collective delusions, also included under the blanket terms of mass hysteria, in that MPI causes symptoms of disease, though there is no organic cause.

There is a clear preponderance of female victims. The DSM-IV-TR does not have specific diagnosis for this condition but the text describing conversion disorder states that "In 'epidemic hysteria', shared symptoms develop in a circumscribed group of people following 'exposure' to a common precipitant."

Mare reproductive loss syndrome (MRLS) is a syndrome consisting of equine abortions and three related nonreproductive syndromes which occur in horses of all breeds, sexes, and ages. MRLS was first observed in the U.S. state of Kentucky in a three-week period around May 5, 2001, when about 20% to 30% of Kentucky's pregnant mares suffered abortions. A primary infectious cause was rapidly ruled out, and the search began for a candidate toxin. No abortifacient toxins were identified.

In the spring of 2001, Kentucky had experienced an extraordinarily heavy infestation of eastern tent caterpillars (ETCs). An epidemiological study showed ETCs to be associated with MRLS. When ETCs returned to Kentucky in the spring of 2002, equine exposure to caterpillars was immediately shown to produce abortions. Research then focused on how the ETCs produced the abortions. Reviewing the speed with which ETCs produced late-term abortions in 2002 experiments, the nonspecific bacterial infections in the placenta/fetus were assigned a primary driving role. The question then became how exposure to the caterpillars produced these non-specific bacterial infections of the affected placenta/fetus and also the uveitis and pericarditis cases.

Reviewing the barbed nature of ETC hairs (setae), intestinal blood vessel penetration by barbed setal fragments was shown to introduce barbed setal fragments and associated bacterial contaminants into intestinal collecting blood vessels (septic penetrating setae). Distribution of these materials following cardiac output would deliver these materials to all tissues in the body (septic penetrating setal emboli). About 15% of cardiac output goes to the late-term fetus, at which point the septic barbed setal fragments are positioned to penetrate placental tissues which lack an immune response. Bacterial proliferation, therefore, proceeds unchecked and the late-term fetus is rapidly aborted.

Similar events occur with the early-term fetus, but as a much smaller target receiving an equivalently smaller fraction of cardiac output, the early-term fetus is less likely to be "hit" by a randomly distributing setal fragment. Since this MRLS pathogenesis model was first proposed in 2002, other caterpillar-related abortion syndromes have been recognized, most notably equine amnionitis and fetal loss in Australia, and more recently, a long-recognized relationship between pregnant camels eating caterpillars and abortions among the camel pastoralists in the western Sahara.

Because the black cherry tree is the preferred host tree for the eastern tent caterpillar, one approach to prevention is to simply remove the trees from the vicinity of horse farms, which was one of the very first recommendations made concerning MRLS. Next, because the brief time for which the full-grown ETCs are on the ground in the vicinity of pregnant mares, simply keeping pregnant mares out of contact with them is also an effective preventative mechanism. In this regard, one Kentucky horse farm took the approach of simply muzzling mares during an ETC exposure period, an approach which was reportedly effective.

No effective treatment for MRLS is apparent. Mares which aborted are treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics to avoid bacterial infections. The foals born from mares infected with MRLS are given supportive care and supplied with medication to reduce inflammatory response and improve blood flow, but none of the treatments appears to be effective, as the majority of the foals do not survive. Unilateral uveitis is treated symptomatically with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Symptoms of the disease are an acute pain and swelling in the hips and knee joints. Some of the other characteristics of this disease are dwarfism from birth, deformation of the limbs after age seven and death as early as between 25 and 30 years or even younger. Depending on the mobility of the affected patients, the disease has been identified with three severities: in mild to moderate cases, the patient is able to walk with difficulty, in severe cases mobility is very restricted, whereas in acute cases the limbs are bent and badly crippled making the patients crawl.

Islamophobia in Australia is a fear of Islam in Australian society; it has been associated with hostile and discriminatory practices toward Muslim individuals or communities and the exclusion of Muslims from social, cultural and political affairs.

Islamophobia and intolerance towards Muslims has existed well prior to the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The hypothesis that those prone to extroversion or neuroticism, or those with low IQ scores, are more likely to be affected in an outbreak of hysterical epidemic has not been consistently supported by research. Bartholomew and Wesseley state that it “seems clear that there is no particular predisposition to mass sociogenic illness and it is a behavioural reaction that anyone can show in the right circumstances.”

Females are affected with mass psychogenic illness at greater rates than males. Adolescents and children are frequently affected in cases of MPI.

Jet lag may affect the mental health of vulnerable individuals. When travelling across time zones, there is a "phase-shift of body temperature, rapid-eye-movement sleep, melatonin production, and other circadian rhythms". A 2002 Israeli study found that relapse of major affective and psychotic disorders occurred more frequently when seven or more time zones had been crossed in the past week than when three or fewer had been crossed. Although significant disruptions of circadian rhythms had been documented as affecting individuals with bipolar disorder, an Australian team studied suicide statistics from 1971 to 2001 to determine whether the one-hour shifts involved in daylight saving time had an effect. They found increased incidence of male suicide after the commencement of daylight saving time but not after returning to standard time.