FREE ESSAY ON STEROIDS

STEROIDS

Drugs have been used in sports almost as long as sports themselves have been around. The
ancient Incas discovered that the ashes from burned leaves of the Coca tree gave the
people great stores of energy, and made sleep unnecessary for hours or even days, it was
later discovered to be the stimulant cocaine. They would take it before long hunts,
battles, and even found it useful in ancient sport competitions. It wasn't until 1886
that the first drug-related death in sports occurred. A bicyclist took a mixture of
cocaine and heroine, called the speedball, and died from it. Little were the doctors
aware the epidemic that would follow in the next century. Anabolic steroids, developed in
the 1930's in Europe, are drugs that help to build new body tissue quickly, but with
drastic side effects. Anabolic means the ability to promote body growth and repair body
tissue. It comes from the Greek word anabolikos meaning constructive. Steroids are
basically made up of hormones. One woman training to make the 1984 US women's basketball
team used them, her muscles started to bulge, her voice grew deeper, and she even had the
beginnings of a mustache. These are all the usual symptoms of anabolic steroids. Steroids
were not always used for sports, they started out the same way most drugs did, medicinal
purposes. Victims of starvation and severe injury profited from it's ability to build new
tissue quickly. They also helped prevent muscle tissue from withering in patients who had
just had surgery. Steroids are used to treat Addison's disease. Anabolic steroids are
drugs that come from hormones or from combinations of chemicals that achieve the same
result as hormones. Hormones may be given to an individual in their natural state, or in
a synthetic one. The synthetic state is sometimes more potent than the natural one.
Testosterone and progesterone are hormones used in steroids, another kind comes from the
adrenal glands, which secrete various necessary bodily chemicals. The steroids themselves
can be taken orally, as tablets or powders, and can also be liquids that are injected
into the muscles. The steroids taken by athletes contain testosterone or chemicals that
act in similar way to testosterone. Testosterone is found in men and women, but in women
it is present in much smaller amounts, mainly because it is produced in the testicles in
men. More than one hundred and twenty steroids are based on the hormone testosterone.
There are many brand names, such as Durabolin, Winstrol, Pregnyl, and Anavar. Basically
anabolic steroids control the bodily functions that are normally under control of the
bodies natural testosterone. As well as turning women into men and men into manly men it
has a stimulate effect on skeletal muscle mass, some visceral organs, the hemoglobin
concentration, and the red blood cell number and mass. Of course, most people take
anabolic steroids illegally to stimulate growth in muscle cells. Once a person is born,
he/she will not grow anymore muscle cells throughout their life. So when muscle mass
increases it is the individual cells growing in girth to compensate for either an
increase in work, or the release of androgen hormones(found in all anabolic steroids.)
Exercise alone can stimulate the girth of muscle cells to increase by anywhere from
thirty to sixty percent. The presence of androgen hormones allows for even greater
growth. Anabolic steroids act like our natural androgen hormones in that they stimulate
anabolic metabolism in the muscles. Anabolic metabolism involves the buildup of larger
molecules from smaller ones and includes all the constructive processes used to
manufacture the substances needed for cellular growth and repair. As a result of steroids
stimulating anabolic metabolism, muscles increase in size to a substantially greater size
than they would have been if the individual only exercised. Doctors take different views
on prescribing steroids. Most dislike the use of them in sports, and some will not
prescribe them at all for use in sports. They see them as dangerous for healthy
individuals, and the taking of drugs to get a winning edge they see as cheating. Others
don't like steroids, but will prescribe them, knowing their patient, if not given them by
their doctor, will get them from somewhere else. This way they can regulate them, tell
the patient the correct way to use them, and keep an eye on them. Still others doctors
consider steroids safe when administered under medical supervision, which includes
carefully regulating dosages and watching for the first signs of trouble. A fourth view
doctors take is recognizing the possibility that although sometimes steroids do serious
harm, the same can be said of minor drugs, such as aspirin. Millions of people take
aspirin daily, because the benefits greatly outweigh the risks, and suffer no harm as a
consequence, and the doctors feel the same is true about steroids. When under medical
supervision, doctors feel their patients are safe because of their good physical
condition and the drugs can be stopped if trouble begins to show. They feel that with
steroids, much like with aspirin, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. None of these
views can be proven correct or incorrect, but one thing is certain. Steroids used without
medical supervision do the greatest harm. The athletes generally do not know how much to
take, and take doses that are too large right from the start. Many doctors believe that
steroids can lead to heart attacks and even strokes. Steroids cause extreme bloating
because they create an imbalance of chemicals in the body and to regain that balance the
body holds water. This extra fluid raises the blood pressure and could cause strokes and
heart-attacks. Steroids are also suspected of bringing on liver and kidney failure. The
steroids seem just as capable of destroying tissues as creating it. Women are seen as
being especially endangered by steroids because of the increased amounts of testosterone.
Testosterone steroids are androgenic drugs, which means they promote masculinity.
Although women produce small amounts naturally, it is a male hormone. The testosterone
present is kept in balance with estrogen, the female hormone. Like testosterone for
males, estrogen gives females their feminine characteristics. The woman may bald, grow
excess bodily hair, including a mustache, they lose the gentle curves of their body,
their skin roughens, weight is gained, and the voice deepens. An unborn child is also
endangered, female's unborn babies will develop such male traits as extra hair, and all
unborn children, according to a few doctors, are subject to be handicapped and deformed.
Men also are endangered. They may experience a shrinking of the testicles, called
atrophy, accompanied by a lowered sperm count, a lessening of sexual desire, infertility,
and an enlargement of the prostate gland that men under fifty usually do not suffer from.
Steroids are dangerous when used incorrectly, and should be used only under medical
supervision. It has undesired side effects for men, women, and even the unborn
Bibliography
Research http://www.cesar.umd.edu/metnet/docs/steroids.htm Internet Research
http://www2.msstate.edu/~jfw1/Steroids4.htm Internet Research
http://www.musclenow.com/steroids.html Internet Research
http://www.nevdgp.org.au/geninf/adf/anabolic.htm Internet Research
http://www.bigsport.com/steroids/anabol1.htm