Performance-Enhancing Drugs In Sports

4 Pages 1064 Words

Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports

The more the author researched for this essay, about drug use in the sports world,

the more she felt compelled to change her view of all athletes having equal access to

performance-enhancing drugs. The endurance needed for any sport is physically and

mentally challenging. Maybe the athlete thinks he or she needs artificial stimulants to

achieve their goals. Whatever the reason, the use of enhancement drugs is worldwide.

The intent of this essay is to show that steroids have many negative effects and

that steroids, and other natural supplements, should be closely studied by the FDA. This

essay will also support the claim that the professional sports industry needs to eliminate

steroid use and set a good example for younger athletes.

You could say the birth of performance- enhancing drugs was around the late-

nineteenth century. Athletes, looking to improve their abilities, tried synthetic versions of

male growth hormone, testosterone. (Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Introduction. 2005.

www.enotes.com) Then, during the 1950’s, anabolic steroids were introduced to sports.

This revolution in performance enhancement had coaches and athletes alike, thinking

about a level playing field during the 1956 World Games in Russia. There, an American

doctor named, John Ziegler, observed the usage of steroids by the Russian athletes, and

upon returning to the United States, helped develop Dianobol, a drug American athletes

quickly embraced.








Probably one of the most well known ways for using steroids other than for the

building of muscle for competition is for it's quick healing results of inflamed or swollen

joints after just a few days of use. Today, pharmaceutical companies make dozens of

different corticosteroid drugs to treat allergies, asthma, skin inflammations, arthritis, and

connective-tissue d...