Steroids

Consequences of Steroids in Sports

Every year high school, college, and professional athletes try to get just "a little bigger,""a little stronger," and to increase the amount of weights they lift by, "just a few pounds." To achieve these goals athletes often turn to anabolic steroids to aid them in achieving their goals. Anabolic steroids are a quick, but dangerous way to increase muscle mass, and they can carry many risks including some life threatening side affects. Years after taking steroids athletes can live to have serious heart problems, sterility, or possibly not even live, all because of foolish decisions they made in the past. These potentially fatal drugs are not widely known by young athletes at all, because they don't know about the risks that can go along with them. In school, every student is taught about marijuana, cocaine,heroin, sex, liquor, and all those other health risks, but they're never taught about "roids" or "juice." (slang words for steroids) That should be changed, because it is known that student athletes often use steroids, not knowing the risks. Many times they take the risk because they hear about professional athletes taking steroids. But, despite their widespread use in sports, steroids can have more negative than positive effects on athletes of all types. Steroids are chemical substances that can be made naturally by the body or produced synthetically. There are many different types of steroids that are used for different things other than just athletes enhancing muscles. For example, there are types of steroids that can be used by women as birth control pills, and other types that are used for menopause treatment. The abuse of steroids is almost always found to be in the case of athletes, and that is the focus of this paper. "All anabolic steroids are synthetic compounds whose molecular structure is similar to that of the natural male sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone affects development of the male body in two important ways: it has an anabolic effect - increases growth, especially of muscular and skeletal tissue - And an androgenic effect - increased development of male sexual characteristics. Anabolic steroids are constructed stythetically in such a way that they maximize the anabolic effect of testosterone while minimizing the androgenic effect." The way that steroids work can easily be interpreted by a football team. Lets pretend that hormones and steroids are the quarterback. They lead the team towards a goal, and hold them together. The "quarterback" will pass signals to the male hormone receptors. They will assure efficient growth and adaptation throughout body systems. The male hormone receptors are not only found in skeletal muscle, but also in sex organ tissues. This causes muscle building affects to be linked with sex related affects. Two main functions of steroids in the body are physical growth and sexual maturation. Steroids have many metabolic effects, but their primary one is the formation and storage of muscle tissue protein. Because of steroids the body is able to retain certain chemicals and then convert them into muscle. Steroids also affect sexual organs because the accessory sex gland is the first to build the tissue. And, lastly, steroids perform several biological functions in the body without we would die. Steroids stimulate the building of bone tissue and strengthen protein matrix in bones which support our body. Steroids also heal many wound both on the inside and outside of our body. Anabolic steroids are very important to modern medicine.One example of their use is in testicular cancer. To remove this cancer men need to have their testicles removed, which makes them incapable of producing testosterone. Many of these patients are prescribed anabolic steroids to replace testosterone and maintain the function to their reproductive organs and secondary sexual characteristics. Adolescent males with a pituitary malfunction involving low androgen production are often treated with anabolic steroids while they normally would be experiencing puberty. This provides them with growth and sexual maturation they otherwise would never have. Steroids also promote healing. After many kinds of surgery, patients can suffer from lost muscle tissue. Steroids along with exercise and a healthy diet can help rebuild this tissue and lead to a more prompt recovery. Many AIDS patients suffer from loss of tissue, making them very frail and weak. Many doctors have administered testosterone experimentally to help rebuild the lost tissue and weight. Since steroids can have very serious side affects the dosage of these medications must be very precise. The doses for these treatments are tested thoroughly in laboratories, and most doses are similar to the amount that would be normally produced in the body, to keep side effects minimal. The athletes that abuse steroids can take up to ten times the dosage administered to medical patients. That's when side effects are serious. (Internet site: A) Abuse of steroids can lead to many adverse side affects. One major system hurt by the abuse of the steroids is the circulatory system. Abuse of anabolic steroids causes an enlargement of the heart, which is also a symptom of chronic heart failure. This can lead to many bad consequences including sudden death because of failure of the heart. An enlarged heart needs more blood vessels to support it, and since the human body flow cannot accommodate this, areas of heart tissue receive very poor blood flow. This can cause the death of new cells and a massive, and often fatal, heart attack. Blood vessels are also affected by steroids abuse. An increase in anabolic steroids can lead to the hardening of blood vessels because of an increase in collagen in the walls of the arteries. Furthermore, for unknown reasons, the body doesn't respond well to alien testosterone, and that can lead to "hyperaggregability," or otherwise known as blood clots. Blood clots can cause strokes, hear attacks, and even death. Any one of these affects of added testosterone on the human body can be extremely dangerous, and are often fatal. Steroids also have major and minor affects on the skin. Some of the milder affects of steroids are oily skin, acne, hives, rashes, and unexplained darkening. However, sometimes even acne can be dangerous on steroid users. It is likely for steroid users to have acne infected with "Staph," which produces toxic chemicals and can send someone to the hospital for weeks. Steroids can have very serious affects on the liver. The amount of damage done to the liver depends on the amount and length of time that steroids are abused. When the liver is under stress or is damaged, certain chemical markers of cell death, such as SGOT and SGPT, can be found in the blood stream. Liver damage is often