? about performance enhancing drugs

I don't watch a lot of sports. Just the big guns. I do watch horseracing and I love hockey live.

So to a non-sports minded person, can someone tell me why steroids or other performance enhancing drugs are such an issue? Outside of it just being against regulation?

I know this is silly, but if you don't ask you don't know, right?

I am watching poor Arod get grilled and grovel and just trying to figure out what the big deal is.

Well, it's cheating. An unfair advantage.

reply to post by enjoies05


But if everyone does it, then what is the advantage?

reply to post by nixie_nox


The problem when it comes to steroids is that when they are used in the wrong way they can have many side effects that over a prolong period of time could be fatal. But thats just the medical answer for why steroids are bad.

When it comes to sports I personally think that it should be a non issue. Ever since the inception of athletic competition has been around, athlete would try to get an advantage. Is up to those who set the rules to enforce it and at the time that Canseco, Mcgwire to now ARod used steroids they where not prohibited from use in baseball, so technically they where not cheating.

Sportswriters are hypocrites, they didnt seem to care when McGwire and Sosa where hitting 650ft bombs in the late 90's, none of them seem to care why all of the sudden players where breaking all kinds of records, as a matter of fact they basically embrace the culture that now they seem to shun so badly.

The issue of steroids also has a race angle, it wasnt until Barry Bonds broke the single season record that this same sportswriters started digging. They said that the records are tainted but what they dont say is that players since baseball has been played is full of players of questionable characters many of them sit right now in Cooperstown. From racist, to killers, to drug addicts to players that admit to openly cheated on the game are sitting in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The only reason why ARod is in so much hot water is because people in NY are out to get him, he got caught up as a young player in a baseball culture where steroid use was normal, and as a young player what he was supposed to do?

Also some people need to understand that steroids dont turn an mediocre baseball player or athlete for that matter into a superstar, it just dont work that way, ARod was a superstar before steroids and he would continue to produce without them.

reply to post by Bunch


Thank you very much Bunch. That was the kind of pov I was looking for.

Though I do understand medically that it can have severe repercussions over time.

But does it really make enough of a difference to a player to risk their health for it?

reply to post by nixie_nox


The short answer to your question would be no. But you got to realize what we are talking about here, we talking about athletes that make millions and millions of dollars and of course they are going to go the extra mile to get to the top, and those that are at the top are going to want to remain there. Many of the guys that have been caught are not superstars but of course the superstars get more attention when they get reported.

If you are a player and you know that using x,y,z substance might improve your healing from an injury, give you more strenght not counting the confidence booster and using that substance could be the difference between staying in the minor leagues or making millions in the big leagues... what would you do?...thats the type of question many of these athletes ask themselves everyday.

You pay for a short term effect,ever wonder why those ex pro football players die at age 39?,look at Lyle Alzado for instances,was sad how quick he went,when taking steroids like running a car motor without oil,even tually it will die

Mainly the biggest two issues is the cheating in sports and the side effects caused by anabolic steroid abuse. Side effects from steroid use can include:

1. Inhibition of Natural Hormones
2. Liver Damage
3. Effects Cholesterol (Blood Lipid Profile)
4. Gynocomastia (Development of breast tissue in males)
5. Severe Acne
6.  Roid Rage (or) Phychological impairments
8. Cardiovascular Problems
10. Stunted Growth (height)
10. Prostate Enlargement
11. High Blood Pressure
12. Kidney Problems
13. Immune System Changes
14. Sterility in Males and Females

Link to better discription of steroid related side effects

What is scary is that use of high school students taking steroids or "performance enhancing drugs" is rising. Below I have added a chart showing the slow drop in high school students taking steroids up to 2006.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/45436ff60ee9.png[/atsimg]








[edit on 1-7-2009 by Scooby Doo]

i don't care what professional athletes put in their bodies they are taking risks that don't effect others......so should they be able to live with them and take their suspensions i am happy to see them come back

they were trying to entertain us and perform to the fullest......

also i don't subscribe to this tarnish my legacy opinion because the funny thing is ....in some people's mind it will in other's it won't....some say cheating is cheating.....

hopefully these same people should they have a 15 year marriage and cheat on their wives (wether they get caught or not) consider their marriages tarnished forever.....no matter wether the wife forgives them or not....because cheating is cheating

i think also that self rhiteous writers are a bit more pro "cheater-no HOF-ruined life" motto ....for some it is a chance to get great ratings and make themselves appear bigger than the players they envy (same with some fans also)..... it's also like if they don't take that stance the % of people who are Fanatically against that opinion would probably complain to high heavens like the emotional minority of any group always is the loudest....so their is probably some pressure on writers to say "torch em...steroids bad"...


oh and scooby doo you probably want to add to the list of side effects the Psychological depression and that could result should someone feel inferior once they had them and then went off........and this could lead to a whole host of connected issues.......like dependance

but with the amount of players taking...... i'm sure some go on and off with no problems.....likely taking HGH throughout and kicking in some HCG at the end of the roid cycle to keep their testes from shriveling and threatening natural production from coming back......likely in the twilight of their careers................you wanna see a sport with steroid abuse look at WWF/E not really a sport but there you got the high dosage freaks

[edit on 3-7-2009 by cpdaman]

reply to post by nixie_nox


nixie, I for one would like to see drugs as mandatory in professional sports. Now you're thinking what a nut! I would simply want it proposed by management you see. Experience tells me that reverse psychology works in times like these. The problem is not in the court of those taking enhancing drugs but in the court of those that don't and don't complain enough. The way to get those honest athletes to complain enough is to threaten to give them drugs too. Or......... if you really want to make progress..... if one guy on a team gets caught, everybody on the team gets fined/punished. A little locker room justice would go a long way. My thinking is a little off center I know but I don't see much progress from mainstream attempts.

Alright kids, put on your thinking caps and gather 'round the big octopus.

I believe all men and women have the unequivocal right to manage the hormone levels of their own body; not politicians. In some countries, sadly, men don't have the same rights over their endocrine systems as women. It's perfectly socially acceptable for women to use medroxyprogesterone acetate injections to prevent pregnancy, but have any of you wondered why hormonal birthcontrol is only available to women? In this day in age of medical wonders what about men? In fact male birthcontrol has always been around, the hormonal axis that dictates male fertility just involves a different set of hormones; namely testosterone.

If you know your American history, you'll remember the big hoopla that went on during the sexual revolution surrounding female birthcontrol. Politicians pronounced from their ivory towers that this was morally reprehensible, thumbing god in the eye, promoting promiscuity, etc. Although it's arguably not a certainty, in the eyes of these same kinds of people, wouldn't a male solution be even worse?

After losing the fight against woman's reproductive rights and realizing that a direct approach wasn't going to fly, a new direction was needed. Studies on a male equivalent were already well underway, as men wanted to know, and rightly so: what about us?

At the same time, a wide variety of androgenic steroids had already been in use by athletes since the 1930s. America wasn't doing well at the Olympics because of countries who had poured serious money into endocrine research and there was no viable test to detect any of it; Russia and Germany were making discoveries left and right while America trailed from afar. That's not to say America didn't also "assist" nearly every one of it's Olympic competitors before there were testing, they did, just not with nearly as much success.

Politicians really didn't give a flying you know what about America's Olympic shortcomings, but it did come at a convenient time to exploit. Before you know it there was a mass media campaign warning young men that steroids would make you permanently sterile and cause your penis to shrink. Of course there's no medical data showing this, it was born out of the medium of the time; one news source quotes another, again and again until you get a kind of telephone tag where the end result is nothing like the original statement, except the end result actually stuck in our modern mythology. The reduction in steroid use that followed held the fort until a test was developed and the social stigma now attached made it difficult for science to acquire the funding to do more research.

Of course steroids weren't actually made illegal in America until the born again Christians took over the political scene in the 1990's, that was their long-term assurance.

Originally posted by Scooby Doo
Mainly the biggest two issues is the cheating in sports and the side effects caused by anabolic steroid abuse. Side effects from steroid use can include:

1. Inhibition of Natural Hormones
2. Liver Damage
3. Effects Cholesterol (Blood Lipid Profile)
4. Gynocomastia (Development of breast tissue in males)
5. Severe Acne
6.  Roid Rage (or) Phychological impairments
8. Cardiovascular Problems
10. Stunted Growth (height)
10. Prostate Enlargement
11. High Blood Pressure
12. Kidney Problems
13. Immune System Changes
14. Sterility in Males and Females

Well Scooby, you have you differentiate use, from abuse. Tylenol is one of the biggest causes of admittance to the ER there is, but used correctly it shouldn't be a problem, right? Lets run down the list together

1. Inhibition of natural hormones is 50% of the whole point and the main reason you can't go down to the doctor right now and get a Transdermal Testosterone patch so you don't go and get a girl pregnant, not because it'll add a plate or two to your bench-press. This is a plus, not a minus.

2. If you drink alcohol, you do more damage to your liver than oral anabolic steroids. Tylenol is extremely hepatoxic but you can buy it off the shelf anywhere. If you eat an entire bottle in one sitting, you will kill your liver, just as if you were to take an entire bottle of Tylenol or drink a 40 of moonshine.

3. Effects on lipid profile mainly concerns older fellas, but it's something to keep an eye on with bloodwork.

4. Gynocomastia is easily controlled with estrogen and progesterone inhibiting drugs.

5. Acne? Wash your face.

6. The term "Roid Rage" came out of political scare tactics. Without knowing anything about endocrinology or human physiology, one might mistakenly assume that testosterone makes the man and estrogen makes the woman in terms of disposition and state of mind. Increasing the level of testosterone in a man will actually increase their sense of well-being and improve their mood. There's never been any evidence in modern medicine to suggest anabolic steroids lead to aggression in men, in fact the opposite is true. This is something uneducated people will plainly assert to be true without having any idea what they're talking about.

7. Cardiovascular side effects such as deceased stamina are dependent on what hormones and doses are being used, these issues cease upon ending the hormone.

8. Steroids will fuse growth in the long bones of those not yet through puberty. Steroids shouldn't be used by anyone under 21.

9. Prostate enlargement is due to dihydrotestosterone, DHT can be blocked with a variety of drugs, as well as natural supplements such as Saw Palmetto.

10. High blood pressure is mainly due to water retention. Water retention is caused by raised estrogen levels which can be controlled, as we learned in #4.

11. Is about as easy to harm your kidneys with oral anabolic steroids as it is to harm your liver... as in, you need a death wish to ingest that many pills to impact them.

12. Testosterone and the immune system isn't well understand, I've read old papers saying there is a correlation but the real world doesn't line up.

13. Does taking oestrogen make women permanently sterile? No, no it doesn't.

Ask yourself a minute, why do politicians and law makers care about baseball and football stats? Maybe in their spare time, but at the workplace? Is that what it's really about?

reply to post by ZombieOctopus


Zombie Oct, I didn't read your whole post, but I did read the last bit and I have to chime in that I agree that politicians should not worry their pretty little heads over if Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire shot up. The whole congressional hearing or whatever was way over board and a waste of money.

But on the OP, it is wrong to use steroids because it is cheating. As an athlete, I would never cheat at a game. Sports are sacred to the people who play them, and as I would never walk into a church and deface it, I would never condone anyone cheating at a sport. Yea, "everyone" was doing it...but "everyone" was wrong.

I was heartbroken to hear it come from McGuire's mouth. I have never been that big of a baseball fan, but the 98 homerun race got my attention, I remember watching it the night he broke the record, he was in the batters box, I looked over to my brother and said "It's gone" and bam! Homerun.
Just one of many childhood memories going bad. Oh well