The Effects of Steroids on the Human Body and Steroid Abuse by Athletes For many years, the use and abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids have been linked closely to athletes. Steroids come in different forms. They can be taken in pill form or injected straight into the user’s muscles by a needle. There are many sports that are associated with steroid abuse like weightlifting, basketball, and track and field. Anabolic-androgenic steroids are synthetic forms of male sex hormones, like testosterone. They speed up the growth and development process of muscles in the body. Steroids were originally developed around the 1930s in order to treat hypogonadism, which is a disease that prevents the male testes to not produce …show more content…
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has written a list of banned drugs that all athletes are not allowed to use to enhance their performance. The list includes steroids that can be taken orally or steroids that can be injected by a needle into the abuser’s muscle. There have been thousands of athletes that have been banned from the respective sports because of doping (using steroids) while training and/or participating. Several doping scandals in the athletic world have unfortunately come up in the past. One example would be the steroid scandal of Marion Jones. She had won the 100 meter dash, 200 meter dash, and the 4x1 meter relay in the Sydney Olympics. Around 2005, there was an investigation to see whether she was doping or not. Marion denied ever using steroids before or during the Summer Olympics. But in 2007, she admitted in court that she lied to the investigators and two grand juries saying she had in fact used steroids during the Summer Olympics. Because of this confession, she was sentenced to six months in 2008 prison for lying to the prosecutors who were investigating her case. In an interview with Oprah, Marion Jones admitted that she most likely could have won in the Sydney Olympics without the use of steroids.
Honestly, if she was confident enough to know that she was going to win without doping, what was the point of taking steroids in the first place? It makes me sad to hear that there are hundreds of thousands of
Anabolic steroids are taken by tablet, injection, and also by pads on the skin. Even with the possible benefits that steroids could possibly have there are many many more dangers. Some of these include deep depression, aggression, and bad nervousness. Some physical dangers include high blood pressure, liver disorders, and even going bald. The athlete that makes the poor decision to use steroids, also faces the danger of getting caught and being suspended or even banned from the professional sport of which they
II. Main point 1: There are different types of steroids but I'm going to talk about Anabolic steroids which are most commonly used by athletes.
Anabolic steroid use is illegal and banned by professional sports organizations and medical associations. In spite of this, some athletes continue to take steroids because they think it gives them a competitive advantage. As seen in the high-profile cases, if an athlete is caught using steroids, his or her career can be destroyed. And there are serious health consequences.
Anabolic and androgenic steroids come in many different forms. The most popular form is a pill and is easy to take. The draw back of the pill is it is hard on the liver and kidneys because it passes through the system in a couple of hours. Another popular form is cream. The cream’s advantage is it is easy to apply and is less harmful to the body. The draw back is it is very ineffective. The last form is injection. Injecting straight into the muscle gives the best results. Most serious athletes that use enhancement drugs take pills every day of their cycle and inject three times a week.
Anabolic Steroids are taken by athletes to increase muscle mass while decreasing fat rapidly and efficiently. They can push the physiological limits of the muscle, making it bigger, faster and stronger than it can get naturally. Steroids achieve this affect on the body by enhancing the natural process of muscle building. The use of steroids has had a negative impact on the lives and careers of many athletes, causing suspensions, bans, and even the loss of medals and other awards and records earned in international events. A few of the high profile athletes whose lives and careers by their anabolic steroid use include: Barry Bonds, Lyle Alzada, Jose Canseco, Ben Johnson, Chris Benoit, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, Alex Rodriguez and Lance Armstrong.
Anabolic-androgenic steroids are a group of hormones, which includes the natural male hormone, testosterone, and a number of synthetic compounds. "Anabolic" refers to muscle building, while "androgenic" refers to increased masculine characteristics. Anabolic effects are basically muscle growth. Androgenic effects produce secondary male sex characteristics like facial hair, body hair, deepening of the voice, and so on. In the 1950's scientists were trying to isolate the muscle building properties without the masculinizing effects. This lead to the development of synthetic anabolic steroids.
Steroids have for years been associated with cheating. Though long ago it was common practice for athletes and bodybuilders to use them in order to have an edge in order to become the best, that perception has fallen away along with the careers of many famous athletes. Today the negative connotation associated with using steroids is stronger than ever before. The most recent scandal involved the allegations that world famous cyclist Lance Armstrong, a seven time consecutive winner of the Tour de France, used performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong later admitted to using them and was promptly banned from participating in cycling events as well as stripped of his awards.
Sometimes professional athletes take a shortcut to gain an edge over competition. The resource that they use to get this edge is called an Anabolic Steroid. Anabolic steroids are synthetic variations of the male sex hormone testosterone. The proper term for these compounds is anabolic-androgenic steroids. Although these athletes gain temporary success, there eventually are negative effects, they could be either long term and short term. In terms of history In the 1956 Olympics, Soviet athletes, especially wrestlers, performed at exceptionally high levels. After learning that those athletes were using testosterone, an American physician named Dr. Zeigler created a more selective form of what we know as anabolic steroids.
And athletes loves when someone is looking at them when they are working out in the gym. Although, there are only a few who know a lot about steroids, but they use it still and they refer to it as using it intelligently. Other reasons for athletes to use steroid is to win at competitions. Ofcourse, many athletes have been caught and mostly it's because they did not feel like they have truly won. For instance, the cyclist, Lance Armstrong, used steroids throughout his career, but eventually he confessed to the
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
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 (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
For many years sports have played huge roles in human’s everyday lives. From entertainment, political, financial and to actually competing in them. The task for the sportsmen or women, especially in the top rank, is to beat the other competitors and get a good result from it. Here there is a high amount of pressure on many athletes coming from the media, coaches, themselves etc. They have the wanting to do well and achieve their goals and aims so much that some of the athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs. Obviously training for competition is the main thing to do but using drugs is another helper to succeeding. So, to their way of thinking, doping does not seem like cheating it just seems like
Performance enhancing drugs, or steroids, are defined as substances used to improve physical performance. There are many types of steroidal performance enhancers. The first of these performance enhancing drugs are anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids are also known as androgen steroids, and they are used to increase the muscle mass and strength of a person. A natural anabolic steroid is testosterone, which your body naturally produces. Some athletes take straight testosterone which is another way to boost your athletic performance. This has the same effect as anabolic steroids, but it is natural and can be found within the body. Anabolic steroids are so effective and appealing to athletes, because they allow athletes to recover faster from a
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.