Steroid Use Among Athletes In recent years steroid use by young athletes has increased dramatically, and growing at an alarming rate. Originally developed to help cancer patients and victims of starvation, they are derived from the male sex hormone testosterone. In recent decades steroids have been abused by many athletes hoping to improve performance. Besides the unfairness their use introduces into competition, steroids can have serious psychological and physiological side effects, including increased aggressive behavior and cancer of the liver.
Developed in the late 1950s, steroids were used to help treat illnesses such as; burns, hormonal imbalances, chronic diseases, and as protection for blood cells during treatment for cancer. Although steroids have been used since the 1960s by athletes who want to increase their athletic performance, and by bodybuilders that want better bodies.
Steroids work by helping the body synthesize protein for muscular growth, therefor athletes who use them recover more quickly after a work out or game.
Various anabolic steroids. Author: Wikidudeman (ta...
Numerous vials of injectable anabolic steroids, wh...
Several large buckets of anabolic steroid vials co...Steroid use also increases aggressiveness and strength that increases the intensity of a work out. The harder an athlete works out, the greater the gains he makes, the stronger he gets, the better he becomes. Steroids do not only make a person angry, they also cause great gains in pure muscle mass, muscle endurance, and muscle strength.
"The need to be the best has driven athletes to steroid abuse..."(Nasser,105). The first usage of synthetic steroids was by bodybuilders who wanted to make extra gains and look more muscular. The steroids available in the sixties were weaker and safer than the steroids that are being used today. Old photographs of bodybuilders then and now show the difference that steroids use has on the body. I the seventies a bodybuilder who weighed two hundred and thirty pounds was considered big, now adays bodybuilders who...