Consequences of Steroids in Sports

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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 foo...

... middle of paper ...

...d possibly sterility. Think of the body as an outlet, and the steroids are plugs. It is the steroids job to make sure that everything gets energy and runs smoothly. When working with the right amount of plugs, the steroids are usually successful. However, when extra plugs are forced to go into the same socket, the power can go out. The effect that the plugs were originally supposed to achieve are now backwards. Similarly, when steroids appear naturally in the body, they do their job well, but when foreign steroids are introduced into the body, destructive ends usually follow. We see from this example of steroid abuse that if normal function progresses to an extreme shape, healthy functioning becomes a disease.

Works Cited

University of Florida( 2004) Benefits of Strength Training. Retrieved April 9, 2005, from http://www.recsports.hhp.ufl.edu/fitness/strength/benefits.htm

Goldstein, Joshua (2001) War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge University Press.

Keteyian, Dr. Steven(2000, October 10). Exercise Boosts Mental, Physical Health. Retrieved April 12, 2005, from http://psycport.com/news/2000/10/10/DTNS/000-0286-Keyword.Missing.html

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