Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

Performance Enhancing Drugs and Their Impact on the Overall World of Sports

Sports play an important role in society because they promote the health of individual bodies through hard work and dedication, embodied and encompassed by fair play and sportsmanship(Llewelyn). In the sports world today, performance-enhancing drugs (PED's) are very prevalent and have changed the way that almost everyone perceives sports figures. A substance is categorized as a PED when it has the potential to enhance a sport performance and when it poses a potential health risk to the competitor (U.S. Anti-Doping Agency). Since the dawn of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in the world of sports, the game has been forever changed by those who use them because of their potential

for unsportsmanlike advantages and the risks involved with using them.
PED's serve two distinct purposes; to gain an edge or advantage over another, or to try to keep up with others ("Ethics and values").

There are four types of PED's: Anabolic Steroids, Erythropoietin, Masking Agents, and Stimulants. Anabolic Steroids are the most common of these. They, along with other stimulants such as Human Growth Hormone(HGH), have shown the potential to improve performance by increasing muscle mass and the ability to reduce body fat ("Thank You"). The Mayo Clinic has been quoted on saying that testosterone is "the main anabolic steroid hormone produced by the body". Testosterone was first experimented and discovered in the late 1800's. It served the purposes of adding muscle mass and is responsible for masculine characteristics such as a deeper voice (Mayo Clinic: Llewelyn, William). In order for testosterone to increase muscle size, the body must find a way to increase the intake to over 1,000%, which only PED can achieve (U.S. Anti Doping Agency). On the other hand, masking agents can serve a much contradistinctive purpose, which entails diluting urine samples for drug testing that masks the performance enhancing supplement(s) ("I Play

Healthy").
To go alongside the effects of performance enhancing supplements, there are numerous risks involved with the use, and consumption, and/or injection of these illegal drugs. When taking anabolic steroids, men and women may experience: increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture, liver abnormalities and tumors, increasingly high blood pressure, heart and circulatory issues, depression, and stunted growth in teenagers(Mayo Clinic). Other, more prominent physical risks of anabolic steroids include: baldness, infertility, and enlarged prostate gland(Mayo Clinic). Although there has not been a number indicating the amount of deaths caused by PED's, it has been aggressively linked to heart-related death, cardiovascular collapse, depression and suicide from withdrawal, and even cancer-mutated cells(Effects of Performance:"Thank You"). Human Growth Hormones have been associated with severe headaches, loss of vision, enlarged jaw, heart failure, tumors, and crippling arthritis(Effects of Performance). Male specific side effects of performance enhancing drugs include: development of the breast tissue, shrinking of the testicles, impotence, and reduction in sperm count(Effects of Performance). Where as women from the same study where shown to have a deepened voice, cessation of breast development, facial hair, and abnormal menstrual cycles (in which may become permanent)(Effects of Performance). Other than just the side effects of the drugs, injecting the drugs may be as or even more dangerous. In 1984, bodybuilders were recorded to have contracted the AIDS virus after injecting steroids with the same needle(Education Specialty). The International Olympic Committee alongside the U.S Association of Drug Agencies have banned the use of all enhancing supplements that give athletes any unfair and unsportsmanlike advantage over another. This increases the risk of using PED's that much more, because it is illegal in almost all professional competitions. In an article titled "Ethics and Values Build True Sport", researchers conducted multiple experiments and tests on teenagers and have found that the majority of those teenagers who use performance enhancing supplements are unaware of the risks involved with them.
Performance enhancing drugs are very prominent in sports because of their potential to improve overall performance and make winning that much more obtainable. One common reason why athletes seek to use PED's is because it "greatly enhances the rate at which protein is retained by the muscles"(Llewelyn, William). When an athlete pictures someone who uses an illegal enhancement, they see a person who is destroying their competition and winning at everything they do. This narrow minded perspective may promotes them to try the drug(s). During the 1970's, the demand for steroids in speed driven sports increased due to the benefits of the drug which includes: allowing athletes to repair muscles tears and strains quicker, which corresponded with longer and much harder workouts that did not take nearly as much time to recover from(Education Specialty). Aaron Cross has been credited by finding out how PED's increase the amount of red blood cells contributing to an accumulation of abnormal amounts of oxygen found in the blood. Cyclists, that Ophir Sefiha has reported, were quoted on saying that PED's are an "occupational necessity". Football players, wrestlers, and runners have shared the same views according to Sefiha. The athletes that are subjected to PED's believe that the only way to succeed or become better than others is not from hard work, dedication, or commitment, but rather cheat by using banned substances to show massive improvements in performance and more specifically individual capabilities. Overall, athletes are persuaded to use these high-volume risk drugs because of their potential for swift boosts in production and ability to skip the slower, more acceptable process of legal training.
Performance enhancing drugs and the use of testosterone for athletic experiment and performance was recorded in late 1954 to 1955 for the first time("The WeighTrainer Blog").

Athletes learned from body builders that they could find a quicker and much more effective way of increasing performance while not having to rely solely on determination and skill. Steroid and other PED use have been proven to show how they give athletes a much larger, unfair advantage over a normal athlete. Current data from the University of Olso shows that there is a cellular "memory mechanism" with human muscle with brief use of steroids("Muscles May Permanently"). In this experiment, "Mice were briefly exposed to steroids, which resulted in increased muscle mass and number of cell nuclei in the muscle fibers. Three months after withdrawal of the drug, their muscles grew by 30% over six days following load exercise. The untreated mice grew insignificantly"("Muscles May Permanently"). Due to the result of the mice, human consumption of steroids could have a very similar effect on the 'muscle memory' mechanism. Athletes use these drugs to create an unbalanced playing field. They do whatever it takes to increase their own performance through "synthetic modifications of testosterone" and to be one step ahead of their competition(Mayo Clinic:Pound, Richard). The reason why transitioning PED's from bodybuilding to regular sports was so welcoming, was because most athletes who used these supplements did

so to secure a spot on a professional team and/or win a