The rush to Adrenaline: Steroids in professional sports
Infertility, tendon rupture, increased blood pressure, heart attack, tumors, cancer, aggression, and severe acne; these are just some of the side effects of using anabolic steroids (“Anabolic steroid abuse”). Why would an athlete risk all of these serious side effects just to hit a baseball a little farther or to gain muscle mass to be superior against their opponents in football? Most people know who big-name athletes like Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Lance Armstrong are; and admire them. Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in just one season. Lance Armstrong won seven “Tour de France” titles in his career; both being doped up on steroids while doing so. Could they
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Androstenedione is a hormone used to make medicine. The body makes Androstenedione naturally by the adrenal glands, ovaries, and testicles; but it comes in a pill and as a spray form as well. (“Androstendedione”). The effects of having too much Androstendedione result in its conversion in the body to estrogen and testosterone (“Androstenedione: Uses..”). It is used to increase the production of the hormone testosterone to enhance athletic performance, increase energy, keep red blood cells healthy, and enhance recovery and growth from exercise. This causes athletes to take Androstenedion through pills to staggeringly improve their athletic ability against their opponents. Androstenedione is known to increase the chance of prostate cancer, baldness, and liver disease. Since Androstenedione bumps up the levels of testosterone in the body, it can lead to enlarged breasts, even on males. The steroid can also lead to aggression and depression. (“Androstenedion”). But since Androstenedione is used for medical use, it is not illegal to use for the public; but sports have banned it from being used by …show more content…
This lead to an investigation that ended up with positive TGH urine tests from four athletes competing at the U.S National Championship. European 100m champion, Dwain Chambers, tested positive for TGH. Victor Conte, the head of BALCO was sentenced to four months in prison and then house arrest in 2005 for illegally providing athletes with an undetectable steroid. In 2007, Marion Jones, who won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, admitted to THG use. In a short few months, Jones was sentenced to six months in prison after originally lying about her steroid use in court. Jones was immediately stripped of all five medals by the International Olympic Committee (Baker). Famous Boxer, “Sugar” Shane Mosely, used THG in 2003; Mosely claimed that he thought they were legal vitamin supplements. An athlete is liable for the violations of taking steroids regardless of whether the athlete intentionally, unintentionally, or negligently took the prohibited substance (Gillespie); which happened to MLB superstar Barry Bonds whom tested positive for THG, and later claimed that his trainer gave the THG pills to him and he had no knowledge of the pills being steroids (“Barry Bonds steroid abuse”). 14 time all-star, Bonds, holds various MLB records that
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.
Theres no question that today's young athletes feel enormous pressure to be faster, stronger and better-- all the time. And it’s part of the reason why young teens are turning to steroids,” says Michael Maloney M.D. reporting to University of Rochester Medical Center. Today many people in the world are turning to steroids to enhance physical features. What they don't know is that steroids can actually effect your body negatively in the future. Many of these effects can be physically unattractive such as acne and can also be life threatening. Many countries around the world are taking action and banning steroids. The only way people will have access to steroids in the future is by having a prescription and having a type of rheumatologic inflammatory
I believe that these drugs are safe when used in moderation and should be allowed to use by athletes if they choose, as if you allow Safe doping, then it will let the athletes have an advantage in their game plus they have a choice, when used for health purposes it's safe as well as moderately using them for working out and athletics to help recovery time, injury recovery and endurance. Yet these two types of steroids can be very addictive and most steroids prescribed are abused because of the addictive nature of them, when abused or taken over long periods of time, causing many irregularities in the body and diseases that may end up fatal as well as aggressive acts that can lead to crime, like robberies, assaults and damaging property. These acts are usually called “Roid Rage”. (Stacey L. Blachford and Kristine Krapp 2003) Steroids have healthy and unhealthy impacts, Healthy outweighs the unhealthy
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
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.
Anabolic steroids have been abused by Major League Baseball players for years, it’s time to forever ban the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs before they ruin America’s past time. Why should athletes be able to cheat when teammates or rivals are competing with honest effort? Every year records are broken and new heights are achieved, the game of baseball is very simple yet very humble, and to deceive the game you love, forever will you be punished. Let me inform you with the origin in which PEDs were first used and where they came from, regulation, and a possible solution.
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.
Barry Bonds finished his career with 762 home runs. Unfortunately, in April of 2011, Barry Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice. He did not get convicted of the other three counts of allegations, using steroids and human growth hormone, but his reputation changed permanently. Performance enhancement drugs and baseball have been associated with each other for a while. The
Steroids are seen as an effortless way out of painstaking work one executes to be successful. Do not be misled by steroids as it’s still a drug. In one of the Bell brother’s standpoints Smelly struggles from detaining himself from the narcotic. This portrays the enslaving power the drug has on Smelly as he cannot stay away from steroids. In competition it is said each person uses anabolic steroids to enhance performance and not all appear to be punished. For instance, in the 1988 Olympics as brought to attention that winner Ben Johnson used a banned substance and stripped of the gold medal. Whereas, Carl Lewis received the gold medal; although, he too took the banned substance and media never brought it to attention. Presumably because he’s
Steroids have been around the athletic programs for years and the most testing has come out to spot this type of cheating in order to make playing sports fair. Society has become very lazy over the years and building up hard work has been taking for granted and a lot of people these days spend more time trying to cheat than making the effort to stay steady at the gym and achieve perfection correctly. Effects on steroids come with the good and bad just like everything that is added to the body. When athlete’s get caught use these types of drugs there are some very heavy penalties that can cause an athlete the entire season and if a player misses a season in any sports that experience lost as well as a career tainted by a cheating scandal. “David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said they were confident of U.S. government cooperation, based on past experience, including the BALCO doping case (Patrick).” The BALCO scandal was one of the biggest bust in sports that brought down huge athletes names like Barry Bond, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens and Adrian Beltre. These athletes are and were the best in the sport at their prime, which raised question did the steroids play a major part in their success. A lot of these athletes played the Major Baseball League and it has led this twentieth century of that sports to be called the steroid era. Steroids can make a person get extremely big or build
I am against them having drugs in sports.This has been a big problem for awhile, and it causes the body to gain more strength where it is injected. It’s not fair when people use drugs in sports because think about it if someone that isn’t using the drug vs. someone that is, that isn’t fair because the guy using the drug would most likely win.
Anabolic steroids are quiet a big problem in the fitness industry, these drugs are a quick unsafe way to achieve lean muscle mass. They are used in many competitive sports such as football, baseball and Olympic type events it’s of course prohibited and players are tested but it’s not difficult for athletes to avoid detection. One of the most controversial sports that anabolic steroids is involved with is bodybuilding, the reason happens to be because of the drug testing policies which allow athletes to build there muscle with the drug then a couple weeks before the competition the athletes cycle off so that test results show that there clean. I think the reason that athletes are so obliged to take these performance enhancing drugs might be peer pressure from coaches, parents, fellow athletes and even family, for some people it’s the idea of winning that drives them into taking these drugs.
All athletes want to win, but some want to win more than others. Some athletes will do anything to get the competitive edge over their opponents. Then they turn to drugs to get the edge. Steroids are the most common drug for athletes to take. It increases muscle mass, body weight etc. Athletes also take androstenedione, creatine, anabolic steroids and ephedra alkaloids. 2.5-5% of adolescents are using these drugs. There are a lot of banned drugs, just about 50-130 different drugs that cannot be used in any kind of sport. The United States of America Doping Agency or (USADA) is requiring more and more drugs tests on the players at the college level and professionals as well. Many of the drugs cause acne, aggressiveness, baldness and many more
A steroid used in the treatment of medical conditions usually involves the use of only one type of steroid and medical patients are closely monitored and the doses used are approximately that which would be produced naturally by the human body. In the case of steroid use in sports, people tend to take mega doses sometimes 10-100 times the dosage that would be administered for some medical conditions and often involving more than one type at a time. Most steroid users, and especially novice users, get their dosage instructions from the seller or from friends who take the drugs, more often without any questions as to the drugs effects, or correct dosages. Many steroids available on the black market are even of dubious quality and often only contain
Along with the physical problems there are also mental 54reactions associated with the usage of steroids. This drug becomes very addictive and damaging to the mind. It causes violent episodes which an athlete can claim a legal insanity defense to it. They get so wrapped up psychologically that the negative effects doesn't matter to them. Research has also discovered that steroids cause psychotic side effects sometimes referred to as "roid mania". Along with these are wild aggressive, combative behavior, depression, listlessness and delusions during and after performance. Even though the