Performance Enhancing Drugs

Performance Enhancing Drugs

Imagine watching a baseball game with the score 30 to 32, yes it would be entertaining at first to watch all those home runs, but at a point the sport is no longer baseball just merely a home run derby every game. This would be the case if sports allowed steroids. It is amazing what athletes will do to achieve higher levels of performance and to get the extra edge on the competition. Most people don't realize the long-term side effects that come about because of these decisions made early in their life. This resembles the use of steroids in a person's life. Steroids first became an option to athletes starting in the Olympics during the 1950's. Performance enhancing drugs don't show the true talent in players. Research proves that the effects of performance enhancing drugs are harmful to people. Performance enhancing drugs should continue to not be allowed in sports.

According to Dictionary.com performance enhancing drugs are substances used by athletes to improve their performances in the sports in which they engage by making the athlete stronger. "According to Erikson et al. of the Department of Integrative Medical Biology at Umea University in Sweden, the use of anabolic steroids induce an increase in muscle size by both muscle hypertrophy and the formation of new muscle fibers" (Gilligan par. 9). They are agents know or thought to improve performance in a particular activity. There are numerous types of performance enhancing drugs. The types range from stimulants, narcotic analgesics, anabolic androgenic steroids, peptide hormones, and beta 2 agonist. Steroids are the most popular performance enhancing drug. Performance enhancing drugs are usually taken as oral pills, though some injections are also available to be intravenously injected. Athletes may have several reasons for using performance enhancing drugs.

According to Terrydolson.net athletes take performance enhancing drugs to build mass and strength of muscles and bones, to increase delivery of oxygen to exercising tissues, mask pain, stimulate the body, relax, reduce weight, and to hide the use of other drugs. With the improved technologies and development skills, the detection of performance enhancing drugs in an athlete's blood stream has become almost impossible. Athletes that were found guilty of using steroids such as Barry Bonds say that they didn't know they were taking steroids or they denied having knowledge that the supplement contained Human Growth Hormone or HGH. This is becoming a reoccurring theme in sports now a day. The problem is that athletes don't see any downside to using steroids. But the fact is the use of performance enhancing drugs has stopped athletes from achieving their goals. Marion Jones was stripped of her five Olympic medals and wiped her name from the record books following her admission that she started using the steroids before the Olympic Games. NFL defensive end Lyle Alzado died of brain cancer. He believed that his disease was the result of more than two decades of steroids and HGH use. Laura K. Egendorf stated in her book, "Performance-Enhancing Drugs", "Since 2005, Major League Baseball has suspended 127 players for performance-enhancing drugs, including 113 in the minor leagues" (67). Barry Bonds and many other MLB players are cannot be inducted into the Hall of Fame because of the use of steroids. Cases such as these have occurred where performance enhancing drugs has stopped athletes from achieving their goals. The risk of public shame along with the harm it does to your body is just another effect that makes steroids unworthy of time and money.

Performance enhancing drugs are harmful to the body. The TLC YouTube video "Side Effects of Steroids" states by using steroids you have the risk of getting severe acne, liver abnormalities and tumors, increased low density lipoprotein cholesterol, and decreased high density lipoprotein, aggressive behaviors, rage, violence, psychiatric disorders and drug dependence. Steroids have numerous risks that are different for both men and women. Men may develop prominent breasts, baldness, shrunken testicles, and infertility if using steroids. Women may develop a deeper voice, and enlarged clitoris, increased body hair and baldness if using steroids. Creatine is a supplement used to strengthen muscles which is legal in every sport. The side effects of creatine are stomach and muscle cramps, nausea, diarrhea, weight gain, and kidney and liver damage. If taken performance enhancing drugs through needles increases the risk on getting HIV, Aids, or hepatitis. According to the academic journal Risperidone Treatment in a Steroid-Induced Psychosis Case, steroids can have serious psychological side effects. "We describe a case of a 46-year-old man with a recent diagnosis of optic neuritis, who has psychotic symptoms which appear to be induced by steroids."

According to an article on Steroid.com "In 1849 a man we may call the father of modern-endocrinology, Arnold Adolph Berthold of Germany first removed testes from Cockerels, a species of birds and concluded the adverse effect indeed led to a loss of male characteristics common to the species. This led to a more apt understanding of the importance of the male testicles; in as they carry with them the necessitating factors that simply make men, men" (par. 3). Using his work as a basis, hormones were discovered in 1905, leading directly to the development of anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids were created in Germany in the late 1930′s. First tests were held on dogs and later on soldiers. First steroids were used for keeping prisoners alive and making soldiers more brutal during the battle. After World War II, European and American doctors used steroids for treatment of anemia, malnutrition and quick recovery after surgeries. Twenty years later Dr. Zeigler discovered that the main ingredient of steroids was testosterone. Soon steroids appeared on the market. The use of performance enhancing drugs by modern day athletes began around 1954 with body builders. In 2000, The New York Times reported that steroids were rampant in baseball, but a baseball spokesman said they "have never been much of an issue." In 2002, after a Sports Illustrated cover story said baseball "had become a pharmacological trade show," the commissioner and the union finally agreed on a testing policy" (par. 8).

Performance enhancing drugs are not allowed in sports or the Olympics. Performance enhancing drugs are banned from the NBA, MLB, NFL, and the Olympics. If the athletes are found using them, they will be suspended and fined based on the sport that they play. Rookies in the National Basketball Association are tested up to four times per season for steroids and recreational