Why Do Athletes Use Dietary Supplements?

Pre-workout supplements are a newer category of products that are designed to increase workout intensity and energy. These products are being used by millions of athletes today, and there have been a lot of questions raised about the long-term effects of them. There are a lot of different brands in this industry, but most of the products contain the same main ingredients: Creatine, nitric oxide, vitamin B, and caffeine. There has been quite a bit of research done on these ingredients individually, but together they have not been studied very much, which is why a lot of athletes avoid them. Another problem with these products is that athletes are becoming

(Graham, 1998) This shows the importance of caffeine in endurance sports such as cycling, running, and soccer which require a great deal of physical stamina in order to compete successfully. Studies also show that caffeine has very little affect on athletes requiring quick burst of energy such as sprinters and swimmers. Also caffeine has been known to decrease fatigue in athletes, which plays a physical as well as psychological role in the performance of an athlete.

Caffeine is a natural central nervous system stimulant. It is considered a drug that if is overly consumed can be dangerous for one’s body. Caffeine is a temporary energy booster that improves mood and alertness for most people, mainly athletes. It can be an eye-opener in the morning, could be drunk or eaten on practice brakes, and for some, it just became a habit that they cannot go through a day without a cup of coffee before exiting their doorways. Furthermore, it requires good health and stamina for athletes to perform throughout the game, particularly the one in teams,

Central Idea: Caffeine can be found in many places and comes in many forms. It can major effects on our body and we can experience major withdrawal symptoms.

Caffeine is a very popular stimulant among athletes because most believe that it provides energy, increases alertness, and quickens reaction time. When in beverage form,

Adenosine binds onto receptors on the brain cells, which causes people to feel the tiredness and laziness; however, because the two molecules are very similar, caffeine too is able to block the receptors. The excess adenosine is converted into adrenaline which most people are used to experiencing when drinking coffee, a sense of alertness and energy for about 4 – 6 hours. It also helps the natural stimulants work better, so, in a way, caffeine is a stimulant for stimulants. All of this information culminates in the fact that these stimulants that are activated due to the caffeine are what cause the heart to beat rapidly, either too fast for the daphnia to survive, or just enough that they are more active, like humans are when ingesting caffeine. Caffeine also causes hunger as the body is in an “overdrive”

At the heart of sports is the tradition of competition, rivalry, excellence, winning. But where does "doing whatever it takes to win" to cross the line? In recent years, performance enhancing drugs have been no stranger to professional athletes. Although they make the sport more fun, professional athletes should not be allowed to take steroids because steroids are damaging to the body and steroid users receive an unfair athletic advantage.

Historical National Football League coach and manager Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn 't everything--but wanting to win is”. The want to win, is real; it is embodied by the usage of performance enhancing drugs. Blood doping increases the count of red blood cells in the body, anabolic steroids accelerate the growth of muscle and strengthen the bones, and stimulants increase alertness, competitiveness, aggressiveness and reduce fatigue. All of these materials have clear benefits but the health implications are still very present. Many cases of injury from these substances have consequences as serious as death. Athletes worldwide put their bodies and health at risk due to the usage of performance enhancing drugs and methods such as blood doping, steroids, and injections. But in retrospect, it harms a lot more than just an athlete’s body; in fact, performance enhancing drugs and supplements plague the athletic playing field worldwide, which leads to social unrest, health issues, and even political issues.

The reason why athletes are so tempted to take drugs for an event, is all because of the fame you get when an athlete's comes first in the sport. Studies shows that companies assign the best athletes in movies, commercials , and sponsorships, which means they get paid each time the movie/commercial gets paid. Did you know that when athletes take steroids their chances of dying in the next five years is very high. The reason why this happens is because the human body can’t develop so fast in a short period of time.

Athletes have used performance enhancing drugs(PED) throughout history to increase personal performance and recover quicker. Although, there are many PEDs athletes use, two are used commonly among several athletes in many different professions of sports. Steroids and Human Growth Hormones are those two. Professional teams have specific tests for these two drugs, and the consequences can be severe if an athlete is caught using these substances illegally. The mix of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen, which makes up steroids, cause significant weight gains, but consequently steroids are very harmful to the liver and can cause permanent damage “Anadrol 50”. Human Growth Hormones is a over the counter drug athletes use to recover faster, and to make strength gains rapidly “Haley Simon Human Growth Hormone”. Both of these performance enhancing drugs are a

Caffeine is demarcated as a drug because it arouses the central nervous system, causing increased alertness. Caffeine gives most people a temporary energy boost and elevates mood. That’s why everyone generally uses it for plenty of reasons mostly dealing with work or school. Some people use caffeinated energy drinks to improve their endurance while playing sports or to dance for long periods. That’s just the beginning, these are the things that caffeine does to the brain, heart, fetus, and body.

Sylvia Nena (2011) also stated that “Manufactures of these products claim to increase energy, endurance, burn fat and improve athletic performance. According to experts, many of them state that it is untrue that energy drink helps to increase energy. This is due to drugs that can be found in the drinks such as caffeine. Caffeine with high levels of consuming can cause some problems to the human body like palpitations, hypertension, vomiting, convulsions and even worst heart failure which can lead to death. Roland Griffiths (2012) a caffeine specialist said that high caffeine in use by young people can cause a cycle of rushes and crashes that can add “a degree of variance to their moods and psychological well-being that they don’t really need. Joao Breda(2014) from WHO’s Europe wrote that caffeine has a proven negative effect on

With sportsmen seeking alternatives to illegal and unsafe performance enhancing drugs, “ergogenic aids” have come to their rescue. Ergogenic aids are supplements that enhance the performance of athletes by improving their speed, strength and agility. A number of natural products are marketed as ergogenic aids, which have found a ready market among sportspersons. Their biggest advantage is that they are legal, apart from being safe and effective. Examples of such aids include branched chain amino acids, creatine, medium chain triglycerides, pyruvates and vitamins.

Caffeine stimulates the nervous system says medical dictionary. Caffeine's purpose is to help coordination, wake you, make you more aware, and helps drugs work fast and efficiently. (Medical Dictionary) Body temperature, blood flow, production of liver, sugar levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and, stomach acids secretion all rises from caffeine reports University of Michigan. A few of the behavioral consequences of caffeine, closely reflect the type of results that substances like cocaine would procure. Caffeine is just much more of an ordinary universal stimulants, the most standard common place one in fact. (addiction and recovery,

The scene is set. It is 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, and the final heat of the Olympics is about to commence. The sprinters have been training their entire lives for the opportunity at hand, and the outcome of the most important event of their lives is going to come down to mere milliseconds. With a gold medal on the line, these athletes will be looking for any advantage they can get, whether big or small. One direction these athletes turn for an advantage is supplements. Supplements have emerged as a way for athletes to increase their performance, yet their use is very controversial. Supplements, varying from simple multivitamins to complex chemical supplements, are used by almost every athlete, whether recreational or professional,