Anabolic Steroids In Sports: A Literature Review

Steroids are a hot topic of debate and controversy in the world of athletes and sports. Steroids fall under the umbrella of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and are a dark cloud that have been hovering over the sports world for a long time. In the world today, steroids are the most relevant in major league baseball. Many baseball players, such as Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Mark McGwire, just to name a few, have ruined their reputations because of steroids. There are repercussions for PED use in major league baseball, which have cut down on the substance abuse by players but have nowhere near eliminated the problem.

Has anyone ever thought about trying to use steroids? There are many people have never taken steroids before. However, they are curious to try steroids at least once. “The first steroid was synthesized in 1935 for medical purpose,” mainly to produce more testosterone for normal development and sexual functioning (“Performance-Enhancing” 4). Nowadays, athletes and teens use steroids to enhance their performances and improve their looks. There were a lot of reports about how the dangers of steroid use affected physical and psychological health among teens, some solutions are testing and educating on steroid use.

Steroid abuse has become a huge problem in professional sports today. Athletes are now using steroids to gain a competitive edge over their opponents. Also, the athletes are using the steroids to recover quickly from major injuries or surgeries. Many former superstar athletes have been caught taking steroids during the season and offseason.

Steroids (anabolic) are a drug that was discovered and made by medical scientists in the last 1930’s to help with medical problems. The drug was made to help with many medical problems such as testosterone, growth, sexual functioning, and other medical problems such as helping people with HIV to help grow musical. It also helps with many other diseases. Like any other drug on the market people learn that the drug can be used for many other ways. Steroids can enhance athlete’s performance as well as bodybuilders and is used in almost every sport out there. The use of steroids has become a widespread problem. Steroid use has caused many help problems with the misuse of the drug and has caused the drug to be illegal for people to use them in

The competitive drive to win at all cost is fierce among athletes. Winning at all cost often includes using one of many performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. Many athletes use performance enhancing drugs, like steroids, to achieve higher goals and set higher records than other drug-free successful athletes. Although athletes are performing at higher levels when using such drugs, what is the cost? Finally anabolic steroids should remain banned from sports because their use results in many harmful side effects; because their use violates sports regulations, and because their use can cause death.

From the beginning of history, professional and amateur athletes have tempted to use legal or illegal drugs to enhance their performance (1). Athletes have used pharmacological agents, called Performance-enhancing drugs(PEDs), to enhance performance or to become leaner or more muscular (2). In sports, administration of drugs that are forbidden by international world anti-doping agency (WADA) is referred as doping (3). Anabolic androgenic agents (AASs) are the most popular agents that are abused by the athletes, especially bodybuilding athletes. Besides these agents, other classes of drugs such as stimulants and peptide hormones (growth hormone and insulin) are new PEDs that are abused by a lot of athletes in the different sports (1). Other than these compounds, athletes often use dietary supplements like creatine, protein, and vitamins to enhance strength and increase body mass (4-6).

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.

Anabolic Steroids are commonly viewed as a miracle drug in order to increase muscle growth and definition, but what most users of the drug don’t know are the life altering effects that prolonged use can cause. When the drug was released in the late 50’s by scientists working for the Soviet Union, they had no idea what the lasting effects were going to be. At first the drug seemed to be almost a miracle, it helped the Soviet weightlifting team beat the American team by a long shot, but then the lifters began to experience certain bodily changes that were actually the onsets of horrendous life changing side effects that could have been prevented with further studies. Since that time, most states in North America and around have banned the distribution and use of the drug completely due to its adverse effects on the body, if caught using such drugs in professional sporting communities, it could land the athlete thousands of dollars’ worth of fines and they can even face up to five years in jail if they are found with the drug in their possession. On top of this, the risks involved can potentially alter the normal way of life for that athlete for the rest of his life, such risks include hormonal changes, cardiovascular problems, behavioral issues, and even problems with the reproductive system.

Steroids in football has become a major issue in all divisions of football rather it be high school, college, or professional. “Anabolic steroids are synthetic variations of the male sex hormone testosterone” (Anabolic Steroids). Athletes try to discover an advantage by using the illegal substance to gain strength and get ahead of other athletes faster. “The abuse of anabolic steroids by high school, college, and other ameteur athletes is a dangerous practice” (Anabolic Steroids and Sports). In this paper, the problems: steroid rage, players who use it have more injuries, and development of breast, reduced sperm count, shrinking of testicles and the solutions: increase fines when they get caught, punish these athletes the same as normal people, suspend them from games, and decrease athletes’ pay with every incident will be discussed.

Anabolic-androgenic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs has always been a forbidden thing in sports, but have just recently come into the spotlight again. According to Machado and Cortez-Pinto, “Anabolic–androgenic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone, the main male sex hormone” (280). Athletes mainly take anabolic-androgenic steroids to

(The use of performance-enhancing drugs is becoming relatively mainstream. Approximately 3 million people in the United States have used anabolic steroids (Silver 2001), with usage rates as high as 12% among young men and 2% among young women (Bahrke, Yesalis & Brower 1998). Not only are newscasts filled with reports of steroid use by both Olympic and professional athletes, but studies indicate that even teen athletes are using these performance enhancing

Anabolic steroid is widely being used by young teens throughout middle school and high school. Studies reveal that children in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade, aging from 9-13 are using anabolic steroids.(isteroids) Think of a number that would represent the percentage of middle school students that have taken an anabolic steroid at least once. “According to steroid stats of various studies, 5.4% of all middle school students are reported using steroids. This includes 2.6% male students, and 2.8% female students.”(isteroids) “Steroid use is growing among 12-17 year old males, and the average adolescent begins

In the past three decades, steroids has been becoming a serious problem more than ever in the athletic field. Steroids are anabolic drug "to build" growth hormones that include the androgens (male sex hormones) principally testosterone and estrogen and progestogens (female sex hormones). Steroids were first developed for medical purposes. They're used in controlling inflammation, strengthening weakened hearts, preventing conception, and alleviating symptoms of arthritis and asthma. Unfortunately research has shown that steroids have been abused in almost every kind of sport. Although steroids contribute to a muscular body, usage should remain illegal because they physically deteriorate and mentally destroy the body.

In today’s society, athletes are revered as heroes. There is immense pressure to be the best. Athletes are willing to do whatever it takes to gain an edge, even if it means compromising their health. For almost three decades, athletes have been supplementing their strength program with anabolic steroids to enhance their performance. To be sure, anabolic steroids are effective supplements to strength training programs, but there is no doubt that the consequences can be deleterious.

In today’s society in athletics, muscle mass and strength seem more important than in years past. It is believed that many athletes use anabolic steroids to increase their muscle mass and also their strength. Anabolic steroids are a group of synthetic hormones that promote the storage of proteins and the growth of tissue, sometimes used by athletes to increase muscle size and strength. Before the mid 1970’s the use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) was used mainly by highly trained athletes especially those involved in weight training. Since then other athletes including those involved in recreational sports and non-competitive sports have started using the steroids. Steroids are also being used by many school age children