Steroids And Other Performance Enhancing Drugs

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.

Steroids affect appearance. In both sexes, steroids can cause male pattern baldness, cysts, ache, and oily hair and skin. Steroids often make people feel edgy, moody, aggressive, and paranoid. Steroids can make a person angry and hostile for no reason. There are recorded cases of murder attributed to intense anger from steroid use. Anabolic steroid use effects fat distribution in the body. People who use steroids also appear to be at higher risk for using other drugs such as cocaine or alcohol, often to counteract some of the negative effects of steroids. Some steroid abusers report that they have committed aggressive acts, such as physical fighting or armed robbery, theft, vandalism, or burglary. Abusers who have committed aggressive acts or property crimes generally report that they engage in the behaviors more often when they take steroids then when they were drug free.

Furthermore, steroids are terrible for the sports world in general. Athletes who abuse steroids cheat the game and themselves. “The use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional athletes, or doping, has been acknowledged as a problem since at least the 1960s” (Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports Fast Facts). Many superstar athletes had their reputation completely ruined because of being caught of cheating the game they play. Steroids are ruining professionals sports the more and more athletes decide to abuse performance-enhancing

They are abused by both athletes and non-athletes in an attempt to “enhance performance and/or physical appearance” (“NIDA InfoFacts: Steroids (Anabolic-Androgenic)”, 2009). Steroids, typically taken orally or by injection, are used in “cycles” where a user takes steroids for a period of time, then stops for another length of time and then the pattern continues. Steroids are considered very dangerous, fickle substances that have the potential to mess up the user’s bodily functions if care is not taken while on them.

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.

When you were a kid, didn’t you want to play a professional sport? What would you give to be one of the best athletes in the world? Would you risk your reputation? Your health? Would you be willing to die? Although many studies have come out saying that steroids diminish one’s health, people still take them hoping to be the best. Imagine if you were a 28 year old who left college early because a pro team “guaranteed” you that you would play in the big leagues. Yet you just got stuck in the minors, and the only way you could get to the big’s was to take a pill that made you super-strong and super-fast. It would make sense to just take it. But what if that pill shrunk your testicles, hurt your heart and vascular system, and made

Throughout the history of athletics, humans have pursued new and innovative ways to construct better, faster, stronger athletes. Steroid use is one of the most popular choices among these athletes. Steroids, first created in the 1930s, are synthetic hormones that produce specific physiological effects on one's body (Center for Substance Abuse Research). Although the German scientists who discovered steroids did not intend its use for body building or creating better athletes, steroid use has developed into a controversial subject concerning the health of users and other moral issues. Overall, the use of steroids in athletics is physically and morally wrong because it essentially promotes the deterioration of the health of athletes and

“…medical researchers believe that between 1 and 3 million youths and adults have taken anabolic steroids in one form or another specifically to enhance their looks or athletic performances,” stated Nuwer (Nuwer, 61). As astounding as these figures are, the number of performance drug users is steadily increasing. With this progressively increasing numbers, it is projected that millions more will use steroids in the immediate future (Newer, 61). Athletes have always sought an advantage in competition even if ignoring the law and their health if necessary. Using drugs of any sort to facilitate an athlete’s athletic ability should be illegal. The use of performance enhancing drugs is not only detrimental to the user but it also creates an

Most athletes do not fully understand the consequences that come with doing these types of drugs to better themselves as athletes. Because they do not fully understand what they are doing to themselves and those around them. Steroids can be very dangerous to ones health epically when they are working themselves very hard at something. Steroids can be very hard on all the different parts of the body, however the one that they are the hardest on is the athletes kidneys. The effects on taking these steroids can be detrimental for years and years to come, because they are so hard on all of the different body functions. The attitudes of any one who decides to take these types of drugs, are changed and most of the time are very bad and may have unforeseen consequences. Stacy Beaty, a renowned orthopedic and sports medicine doctor stated while being interviewed “Athletes do not understand or care to understand what troubles they are setting themselves up for later in life.” Athletes, get very bad attitudes because they think that they are big and strong, and essentially believe they are invincible to the world. When they get this mind set many thing in their lives may begin to go wrong. Some of them will believe that they can lift a thousand pounds, while other think that they can drink and drive. The sad fact about all

“Individuals who abuse steroids can experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop taking steroids, such as mood swings, fatigue, restlessness, loss of appetite, insomnia, reduced sex drive, and steroid cravings” (Anabolic Steroid Abuse). When taking steroids your body will live off the feelings and emotions that it gives, so when your body stops the intake of steroids it starts to react from being deprived of it. “The most dangerous of the withdrawal symptoms is depression, because it sometimes leads to suicide attempts” (Anabolic Steroids Abuse). Depression can come from many things in a person's life but when withdrawal from steroids is the reason for it then it could have been avoided. Steroids become an addiction because when people stop taking them their body goes through withdrawal so the person most likely starts taking them again.

Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have been banned from Major League Baseball since 1991; however, this law was not strictly enforced by the Major League Baseball Players Association (Anabolic Steroids). The MLBPA to date has become much more involved in the issue of PED use in the MLB, and they do test many of the players for traces of steroids. Few players are caught each year, but when a big name pops up, the whole debacle headlines newspapers, constantly talked about on sports networks and becomes a huge deal. That big name player that was caught using steroids is then given an agreed sentence of suspended games, sometimes they are even revoked of their chance to be in the exalted MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs should be more heavily managed and more severely punished.

In the days when steroids were only being used by body builders and professional wrestlers, stories about performance enhancing drugs could only be found on the back pages of the newspapers. When former Oakland Raiders All-Pro Lyle Alzado admitted to steroid use in a 1991 Sports Illustrated article the whispers about what professional athletes were using steroids began to get louder. (Puma, 2005) Finally, in 2002, when Caminiti, a former MVP, came clean, two things were clear; athletes in all sports were using these drugs, and that they worked. The fact that steroid use had permeated our national pastime combined with the media explosion of the internet and 24 hour a day sports talk created a perfect storm which created the biggest sports story of the new millennium so far. However, two other facts remained clear, performance enhancing drugs were old news, and athletes in all sports from all over the world had been using them for years.

People use steroids for many reasons whether it is to bulk up, perform faster and stronger or to improve their physique. Steroids are known to produce both anabolic and androgenic effects. Which are muscle building and masculine characteristic effects. The anabolic effects raise testosterone

Steroids have many different effects, mostly negative. They cause the rapid increase of strength and power (Roberts, 2). Steroids help to heal muscles quicker after they have been used. It acts as the male hormone testosterone and gives the user more energy. This is the effect that most users are trying to obtain. They also have the effect of powering up the bodies metabolism and helps to burn body fat. This output is looked for mostly obsess people. With have the time and effort of regular diet and weight training steroids may look like a great quick body tune-up. However the negative effects may short live the positive by a long shot.

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.