Anabolic Steroids Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Anabolic Steroids - Essay Example While some athletes like Michael Johnson, a sprinter who won a couple of gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, love pressure and enjoy it, others like Martina Novratilova, a Wimbledon champion find it difficult to handle pressure (The Creative Athelete, n.d.). Pressure arises because of the desire to win, to meet the expectations of the spectators and sponsors and also to remain in sports. It is because of the pressure to perform that some sportsmen resort to other methods of building their strength and endurance, mainly drugs. The most commonly used drugs in sports are erthropoietin and anabolic steroids. Drug associations all over the world have banned these drugs and intake of these drugs in any form amounts to cheating. These drugs can be detected easily by various modern tests. This article gives a crisp purview about anabolic steroids. Young athletes who aspire to become great heroes must know about the disadvantages of these drugs so that they dont take the easier route to success. Anabolic steroids are a class of synthetic steroid hormones that are related to testosterone. When administered into the body, they cause many physiological effects which are mainly anabolic in nature. The effects include increased synthesis of protein and increased appetite. Increased protein synthesis results in increased muscle mass and strength and increased bone growth. Anabolic steroids also have virilising androgenic properties and thus can cause increase in masculine features like growth of vocal cords and body hair. It is for these reasons that these drugs are popularly known as anabolic-androgenic steroids or AAS. Due to the muscle building properties of these drugs, there is a tendency for sportsmen and body builders to take them. Worldwide, most of the sports bodies have banned the usage of these drugs and intake of these hormones is considered illegal and called doping. Medically, anabolic steroids have an important role in the treatment of osteoporosis,