Why Steriod use is bad for athletes

Effect of Steroids on Health of Athletes

20 .03 .2007

Introduction

Drug use has been a widely reported phenomenon in the athletic world The chemical substances present in the drugs interact with the biochemical system of the body , altering and stimulating body tissues nervous system and metabolic process for enhanced performance (Mottram 2003 , 1 . Use of performance drugs in athletics has been reported even in the ancient Greece in 3rd century B .C and in the ancient Olympic games (Verroken , 2003 , 29 . More recently , in early nineteenth century use of

cocaine , caffeine , strychnine , ether , and alcohol have been reported by individuals to increase their efficiency and output (Goldman , 1992 . The use of drugs in sports events increased further in 20th century , the most common of them being anabolic steroids . Their dangerous effect was manifest with reported deaths of athletes due to use of amphetamine abuse in 1960 Rome Olympics (Verroken , 2003 , 30 Since then various reported incidents and scientific studies have indicated towards the harmful effect of performance enhancements drugs on health of athletes

Anabolic steroids and testosterone

Anabolic steroids are man made performance boosting drugs that are synthetic derivative of male hormone testosterone or C-19 steroid harmone and androgen (Dowshen , 2006 . The full name is androgenic (promoting masculine characteristics ) anabolic (building ) steroids (the class of drugs . These derivatives of testosterone promote the growth of skeletal muscle and increase lean body mass . They help to reinforce the natural effect of male hormones testosterone that increases stamina and energy thereby stimulating the body for extra performance and as such athletes have been frequently used by athletes . The Olympic games of 1952 heralded the era of steroids in the world of professional world when use of steroids helped many athletes to surpass their competitors and create long queue of gold medals for their countries . Soon steroids abuse became rampant and brought immediate success for the abusers . In fact they became so popular that more than 20 percent intercollegiate athletes , 33 percent power lifters and 55 percent other professional athletes used some or other forms of steroids between 1976-84 (Pope and Katz , 1988 Yesalis et al

However , steroids have proved to be dangerous substances for the health of athletes in the longer time frame . Although it is true that their use increases performance and stamina in high-energy sports such as cycling and swimming , yet eventually they severely impair the health of abusers (Anabolic Steroid Abuse , 2007 . A healthy human male body produces around 8-10 mg of testosterone everyday after attaining puberty for its normal functioning (George , 2003 , 139 . The testosterone hormone has two principle effect on human body (i ) Androgenic effect : development of primary sexual characteristics , responsible for development of male genitals in fetus (ii ) Anabolic effects : anabolic effect of testosterone entails the secondary sexual characteristics in adolescents such as faster protein synthesis , muscular growth , and skeletal growth (ibid . However , it has been experimented and observed that its impossible to dissociate the androgenic effect and anabolic effect of testosterone . This implies that testosterone...