22/04/2021
PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING-DRUGS : A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD
Hoping to gain a competitive edge by taking performance-enhancing drugs? Learn how these drugs can affect your health.
Most serious athletes will tell you that the drive to win is fierce. Besides the satisfaction of personal accomplishment, athletes often pursue dreams of winning a medal for their country or securing a spot on a professional team. In such an environment, the use of performance-enhancing drugs has become increasingly common.
But using performance-enhancing drugs (doping) has risks. Take the time to learn about the potential benefits, the health risks and the many unknowns regarding so-called performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids, androstenedione, human growth hormone, erythropoietin, diuretics, creatine and stimulants. You may decide that the benefits aren't worth the risks.
Stimulants
• Insomnia.
• Anxiety.
• Weight Loss.
• Dependence and addiction.
• Dehydration.
• Tremors.
• Increased heart rate and blood pressure.
• Increased risk of stroke, heart attack, and cardiac arrhythmia.
Anabolic steroids
Some athletes take a form of steroids — known as anabolic-androgenic steroids or just anabolic steroids — to increase their muscle mass and strength. The main anabolic steroid hormone produced by your body is testosterone.
Testosterone has two main effects on your body:
• Anabolic effects promote muscle building.
• Androgenic effects are responsible for male traits, such as facial hair and a deeper voice.
Anabolic steroids enhance performance but have negative side effects that illustrate the counter-argument of excessive medical risks. The cardiac toxicities of AAS (anabolic-androgenic steroids), stimulants, and other performance-enhancing drugs are well known [1,2] and include sudden death, thromboembolic phenomena, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias. These drugs have also been implicated in stroke, seizures, and such adverse psychiatric conditions as anxiety, mood changes, and autonomic hyperactivity [3]. “Steroid rage” has been cited as a cause of aberrant behavior in some adolescent males. AAS have unique adverse outcomes in adolescents because they accelerate bone epiphysis maturation, leading, ultimately, to reduced matured height. The overdevelopment of muscle strength can cause serious injury to ligaments, bone, and cartilage that have not experienced equivalent growth. And AAS may profoundly alter adolescent ovarian function, a change that can persist long after steroid use has ceased.
Designer steroids
A particularly dangerous class of anabolic steroids are the so-called designer drugs — synthetic steroids that have been illicitly created to be undetectable by current drug tests. They are made specifically for athletes and have no approved medical use.
Risks
Many athletes take anabolic steroids at doses that are much higher than those prescribed for medical reasons. Anabolic steroids have serious physical side effects.
Men may develop:
• Prominent breasts
• Shrunken testicles
• Infertility
• Prostate gland enlargement
Women may develop:
• A deeper voice, which may be irreversible
• An enlarged cl****is, which may be irreversible
• Increased body hair
• Baldness, which may be irreversible
• Infrequent or absent periods
Both men and women might experience:
• Severe acne
• Increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture
• Liver abnormalities and tumors
• Increased low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol)
• Decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol
• High blood pressure (hypertension)
• Heart and blood circulation problems
• Aggressive behaviors, rage or violence
• Psychiatric disorders, such as depression
• Drug dependence
• Infections or diseases such as HIV or hepatitis if you're injecting the drugs
• Inhibited growth and development, and risk of future health problems in teenagers
The bottom line
Do performance-enhancing drugs boost performance? Some athletes may appear to achieve physical gains from such drugs, but at what cost?
The long-term effects of performance-enhancing drugs haven't been rigorously studied. And short-term benefits are tempered by many risks. Not to mention that doping is prohibited by most sports organizations.
No matter how you look at it, using performance-enhancing drugs is risky business.
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