Athletes And Steroids

In every sport, there has always been a desire to win. Some athletes will do anything to make winning possible. Every elite athlete wants to be better than their opponent. Some rely on performance enhancing drugs, also known as PED’s, to improve their game. This topic is very important because it can be the difference between winning and losing. Winning can mean money, fame and a place in history. I believe athletes should not use PED’s in sports because it is an unfair advantage, health risk, bad role modeling, bad sportsmanship, and results in tainted records and awards.

Steroids have a long-term, negative effect on the human body. These effects range from cardiovascular problems to mental and psychological issues such as rage and anger problems. Steroid use has been linked to increased alcohol consumption, marijuana use, cigarette smoking, and narcotic use (Buckman, Farris & Yusko, 2013). Many athletes may not be aware of the lasting effects steroids can have because all they are worried about is their performance, not their health.

In the article, “Performance Enhancing Drugs, Paternalism, Meritocracy, and Harm to Sports” by Nicholas Dixon, argues that PED 's should remain banned due to the many different medical risks one could develop when taking drugs mostly, anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids might be the most popular performance-enhancing drugs out there today, but most definitely isn 't the only one being used. There are many medical problems associated with these types of steroids, “they include heart disease, cancer, or other damage to the liver, and damage to both males ' and females ' reproductive system” (Dixon, 247). Anabolic steroids affect an athlete both mentally and physically. The psychological damage one may have is an increased aggressiveness and sexual appetite, sometimes resulting in abnormal

President George W. Bush says “Steroids are dangerous in sports and steroids send the wrong message: There are shortcuts to accomplishments and performance is more important than character.”

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.

The benefits of using some types of performance-enhancing drugs are obvious. Professional athletes have a very 'short shelf life' as competitors in most sports and must cash in on their talents as soon as possible. For Olympic athletes, the

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.

Athletes or players who use steroids may also have more injuries. “While performance enhancers can make bigger, stronger, and faster, they also carry increased of certain injuries and health complications for users” (Fogel, Curtis). Steroid users “....place others at risk of

Doping in sports has caused a lot of controversy throughout the years in the sports world from youth sports to the professionals. The World Anti-Doping Agency does their best to catch all the drug users but falls short with some people. This causes for an “unfair” advantage and goes against the true value of sport. It can make these players stronger and more athletic which causes more excitement for the fans to watch, more revenue for teams, and growing popularity. Using performance-enhancing drugs is banned in almost every sport, but with the allowed use of them could bring to the players and the sports teams themselves, could outweigh the negative effects of them being used in sports.

Do you want to want to become the peak athlete that you know your body is capable of? Well, this paper will not do that for you, but it will tell you how, and it will tell you why it should be legal to do so. Doping in sports is one of the most extensive debates within the realm of athletics. Whether it be injecting anabolic steroids, consuming them, or blood doping, athletes will do drugs. Doping has no effect on the viewership of the sport. Athletes can always find ways to cheat the system, and trying to prevent the use seems impossible. The use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) should be legalized, as long as it is allowed under medical supervision.

When athletes begin to take these drugs they begin to hurt there bodies more and more every time they do steroids. Vance Golke, a athletic trainer at a local sports medicine facility, stated in an interview that, “athletes today don’t know what trouble they could be putting themselves in when they begin to take enhancements to better themselves. They (the athletes) don’t know what they could be doing to there internal organs and to their lives.” According to the National institute on drug abuse, steroids can have disastrous health effects “that are life threatening, such as heart attacks and liver cancer. Most are reversible if the abuser stops taking the drugs, but some are permanent, such as voice deepening in females. “These are just a few small consequences that can happen if athletes continue to take these types of drugs. Athletes don’t always know what they maybe getting into rule wise either when they begin doing these things. Most coaches don’t care enough to help their players get away with these illegal drugs in most cases. There are many different ways they can help them but, the best way most would agree on

While they are illegal the companies can experiment and create their own undercover. While their condition may seem to meet health standards, years into the future the long term effects of these drugs may never leave their system and can wreak havoc on former athletes lives. Most typical of these drugs are Anabolic Androgenic Steroids, which are injections of hormones which promote masculine features that promote tissue building and secondary reproductive system development. Usually this results in side effects like greasy/ oily skin and acne, infertility, hypertension, liver and kidney dysfunction, aggressive behaviour, and tumors. This can also harbor sex-specific effects, like in females: low voices, excess hair, baldness, and deeper voices and in males the opposite reaction giving them breast development, lower testosterone and risk for prostate cancer. A chilling example of these detrimental effects were seen at the olympics between 1968 and 1988 when East Germany had used state-funded drugs on countless athletes. From as young as the ages of 8, prospects were told to take certain “vitamins” everyday by coaches.

Doping has widely become known as the use of banned substances and practices by sports personnel particularly athletes in an attempt to improve sporting performances. No sensible fan of sport today denies the prevalence of drugs in virtually every major sport, yet none would argue they can ever be eliminated completely. Money alone would seem to guarantee that much. High profile athletes today are competing for high stakes, not just millions, but dozens of millions. The fear of losing everything career, opportunity, contracts, name, fame, and money is pushing more sportsmen all over the world to use performance enhancing drugs, mainly