About Steroids :: essays research papers

Many people have had their lives ruined by the use of illegal steroids, yet the desired effects are so overwhelming that people tend to overlook the consequences. Steroid users believe taking anabolic steroids will enhance their performance, strength, size,etc. They regard the use of them as legitimate as any other aspect of training. To begin with, the term "anabolic " means "to build tissue," therefore anabolic steroids tend to increase constructive metabolic pathways within the body. Also, anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of the natural male sex hormone, testosterone. Testosterone was the first steroid developed, a natural occuring hormone in many plants and animals. The first clinical use of testosterone occured in 1958 when physicians injected it into underweight and ill patients to simualte weight gain. The first reported use of steroids in a non-medical setting occured during World War II. Steroids were adminstered by Nazi doctors into German soldiers to enhance their aggressiveness. The Soviet Union noted the Nazis' use of the drug and recognized that enhanced aggressiveness, increasing in strength, and size could be desirable in athletic competition. The Soviets experimented with steroids in the early 1950's and it is believed that they were used in the 1952 Olympic games. The introduction of steroids into the United States is often attributed to the late Dr. John Ziegler, the team physician for the United States weightlifting team at the last Vienna World Power lifting championships. A Soviet physician told Ziegler that some of the members fo the Soviet team were using testosterone as an aid to enhance their strength. Ziegler was impressed with the results and began conducting some studies on American lifters. The results were the development and introduction of the steroid Dianobol, an anabolic steroid with fewer masculinizing properties than testosterone. Dianobol became well known in the athletic world. By the 1956 Melbourne Olympic games, steroid use had escalated to the point that many Olympic competetors in the strength events were either using them or were aware of their performance ehancing abilties. Anabolic steroids are all derivatives of the male sex hormone testosterone. With the use of steroids a person will receive two types of effects from the use. The first is the androgenic effects or masculinizing. These are the unwanted effects such as the enlarging of the prostate, growth of male sex glands, deepening of the voice, and increased facial hair(other steroids were developed in an attempt