Steroids In Sports

Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

Over the last twenty years have you noticed how much bigger and faster athletes

have become. Many athletes are under pressure to perform and turn to performance enhancing drugs despite their negative effects on the body. Why are athletes using performance enhancing drugs? Is it fame, fortune, or is it they just don't want to give up the game and at what price are they willing to pay to play there sport.

In professional sports today an athlete can make an enormance amount of money. The contracts that are offered to the top athletes today can be over one hundred million over the life of the contract. There are also endorsement deals; every company wants a high profile athlete to represent them. These companies will pay a lot of money for the right person. "When Michael Jordan signed his first contract with Nike in 1984, it was for $2.5 million over five years" (AP May, 2003). In May 2003 LeBron James signed a $90million contract with Nike.

For some athletes it's all about wining. They may measure there career in championships. In almost every sport there are annual awards given out to the top athletes. There is also a Hall of Fame for the best of the best in there sport. For an athlete to receive one of these awards they need to be in top physical condition to excel and master there sport. In other cases some athletes just want to play forever. Bobby Hull played professional hockey in 5 different decades. Ricky Henderson played professional baseball for 28 years.

There are many types of performance enhancing drugs being used today. Anabolic Steroids were developed in 1939 to treat conditions such as eunchoid

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Syndromes, impotence, depression, starvation, and chyptorchidism ( Dhar, Stout, Link, edal, 2005, p1307). Athletes use anabolic steroids because they encourage new muscle growth. They also allow athletes to train longer and harder. Anabolic steroids include: Testosterone, Dihydrotesterone, Androstenedione (andro), Clostebol, Nandrolone. These steroids can be injected or taken in pill form. There are many well known side affects, including: Jaundice and liver damage, steroids are normally broken down in the liver. Mood swings, depression and aggression, because they act on various centers of the brain (Ferudenrich, 2005, p2). In males steroids can interfere with normal sexual functions, and can cause, baldness, infertility and breast development. In females steroids can stimulate hair growth on there face and body. Thicken the vocal cords, which causes the voice to deepen, and could be permanent. Suppress or interfere with there menstrual cycle, possibly leading to infertility. If pregnant, could hurt the fetus.

Some athletes use performance drugs to mask the pain so they can play tomorrow. Some of these drugs include narcotics, protein hormones, cortisone, and local anesthetics. Narcotics are used to treat pain and include morphine, methadone and heroin. All of these drugs are very addictive. These drugs can harm the athletes because they can't feel themselves hurting themselves more. Protein hormones are important for reducing inflammation and allergic responses (Ferudenrich, 2005, p4). Some of the side affects are ulcers, mental irritation, and can cause weakening bones and muscle. Some athletes are using local anesthetics such as Novocain, porcaine, lidacaine the biggest problem is the athlete will not feel the pain and could do further damage to themselves.

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On occasions athletes may need to control there weight. "They use diuretics which are commonly prescribed to treat high blood pressure and are often found in diet pills" (Ferudenrich, 2005, p4). The possible side affects include dehydration, dizziness, cramps, heart damage and kidney failure (Ferudenrich, 2005).

Some athletes need that quick boost of energy so they use stimulants. "They are used to help the athlete stay alert, reduce fatigue, and maintain aggressiveness. They act on the body to make the heart beat faster, the lungs breathe faster and the brain work faster. These stimulants include caffeine, amphetamines, cocaine" (Ferudenrich, 2005, p4). The possible side affects are nervousness, shaking, irregular heartbeats, high blood pressure, and even sudden death. Ephedra can now be added to the list of performance enhancing drugs. Ephedra was in almost every diet on the market. Such as Andro-Xtreme, Hydroxycut and Trim Fast just to name a few. Ephedra is now banned in all over the counter diet pills. The side affects are the same as a stimulant.

Drug testing is preformed in almost all sports. Most of the drugs can be tested using a urine sample. An athlete can be randomly selected for a drug test bye the league or there team. The two most common methods of testing are Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry. Since the athletes know they could be tested they try to mask there drug use using other drugs such as epitestosterone, plasma expanders, and secretion inhibitors.

Lyle Alzado was born in 1942. He was a high school all American in Cedarhurst, N.Y. It wasn't until he got to college that he realized he did not have the

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size to compete. Even when he transferred to a smaller college he still wasn't big enough. So he started taking steroids, he started on Dianabol, about 50 milligrams a day.

"The Dianabol was very easy to get, even in those days. Most athletes go to a gym for their steroids, and I think that's what I did. I remember a couple of weeks later someone mentioned how my biceps seemed to look bigger. I was so proud. I was lifting weights so much that the results were pretty immediate and dramatic. I went from 190 pounds to 220 by eating a lot, and then I went up to about 300 pounds from the steroids. People say that steroids can make you mean and moody, and my mood swings were incredible. That's what made me a football player, my moods on the field.

As I progressed, I changed steroids whenever I felt my body building a tolerance to what I was taking. It's hard to remember all the names now. I studied them a little. And I mixed combinations like a chemist. You had to take them