An 18-year-old bodybuilding influencer has attracted attention online after a comparison of his older and newer social media content appeared to show a striking change in both his physique and facial appearance over approximately two years. The transformation has raised questions because of his comments about his use of testosterone and other PEDs.
The influencer, Dylan Bailey, started sharing fitness-related content on Instagram at around 19 years old, approximately three years ago. He has also maintained a presence on TikTok, where much of his earlier material was posted. Some of his oldest videos date back roughly four years, when he was around 18, and already showed a heavily developed physique.
More recent footage, filmed when he was reportedly around 22 or 23, shows a substantially different appearance. The contrast between the posts led to comparisons suggesting he appeared to have aged dramatically in a relatively short period, despite the actual gap between the footage being closer to 18 months.
Bailey has openly acknowledged using performance-enhancers. In one video, he said:
“I’m not natural. I have ran PEDs for multiple years now.”
He also discussed his experience before working with a coach, explaining:
“When I first started, I did not have a coach. I was haphazardly running s-t and running into side effect after side effect after side effect.”
According to Bailey, his approach later changed after he began working with a coach. Describing his physique earlier in the year, he said:
“Earlier this year, this was me on test only. I was 175 lbs (79 kg), pretty skinny.”
He then compared that point to his condition six months later, stating:
“This is my physique. Absolutely blew up and had zero side effects along the way.”
Bailey attributed the progress to a more controlled approach to his PED use. Referring to his coach’s philosophy, he said:
“Because we don’t run stupid cycles. We kept [things] really basic, did not run drastic heavy amounts of stuff. And every single compound in the protocol served a purpose.”
The discussion surrounding his appearance comes alongside research examining the potential long-term effects of performance-enhanciers on biological brain aging. Rather than focusing on visible changes, researchers have used measures of brain structure and biological age to compare people with different histories of s****** exposure.
Research comparing baseline participants with anabolic users found that people without exposure displayed brain aging broadly consistent with their chronological age, while participants with only short-term exposure did not show a significant difference.
The findings were different among chronic users, who exhibited substantially greater biological brain aging than the other groups. Additional findings from the same research indicated that long-term PED users had lower gray matter volume and a thinner cerebral cortex compared with non-users.
