Essay Example on Performance enhancing drugs can have various physical Positive

Performance enhancing drugs can have various physical positive and negative effects that can assist or harm an athlete They have the potential to dramatically alter the human body but also improve athletic performance Doping may help athletes gain a competitive edge but come with potential risks as well as benefits Also with the use of P E D there may be a physical long term impact on the athlete's body Drugs in sports has changed largely over the time and will only keep on evolving exponentially as the years go by In the earlier years there were fewer known performance enhancing drugs that had yet to be discovered and fewer ways and methods of drug testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs use The usage of P E D such as steroids hormones stimulants creatine and many more drugs can give a useful advantage when it comes to an athlete's body Anabolic steroids are perhaps the most commonly used drug in the doping scene Steroids have positive attributes like increasing lean muscle mass which is useful to bodybuilders Also the Rogerston and associates study showed that steroid use increases body size A particular type of steroids are the designer steroids also known as synthetic steroids which are specifically made for athletes 

So far designer steroids have no approved medical use and have yet to be tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration FDA Human growth hormones HGH is a natural secretion of the pituitary gland which promotes and controls growth in children and adolescent and has been reputed to have anti aging effects on adults Human growth hormones can boost speed and strength as well as enhance weight loss and just improve overall performance in general as explained by the World Anti Doping Agency Over the years many athletes have gotten caught doping and have had to pay the price dearly for it but doping certainly helped them thrive in their athletic performances Perhaps the most famous of them all was Lance Armstrong a professional cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven consecutive Tour de France titles in 2012 when the US Anti Doping Agency discovered that he had used performance enhancing drugs during his cycling career Armstrong then admitted to having had used human growth hormone which surely helped him increase his muscle mass and strength With the usage of performance enhancing drugs and doping in sports in general come very detrimental risks Some serious physical effects of taking anabolic steroids are prominent breasts baldness in men and in women increased body hair and severe acne Another drug that comes with harmful effects are human growth hormones These malign effects include edema which is swelling in the arms and legs enlargement of breasts and muscle and joint pain In severe cases the use of performance enhancing drugs could potentially lead to the death of an athlete as it did in the case of Lyle Alzado Lyle Alzado was an NFL player who won a championship with the Raiders in 1984 He was diagnosed with a very rare form of brain cancer and had lost 90 pounds since then He openly admitted to having had used both steroids and human growth hormones and he used himself as an example to warn others of the dangers of taking these performance enhancing drugs On May 15 1992 New York times published an article that claimed Alzado said he had begun using steroids in college and had become so addicted to them that he continuously kept using them even after his retirement in 1986 and never had any doubt about it Alzado was 43 years old when he died of complications from brain cancer and the brain cancer is believed to have been an effect of having abused steroids and other performance enhancing drugs for so many years 

Many athletes are tempted to use performance enhancing drugs to improve their athletic performance and body appearance without being aware of the long term results The physical side effects of using performance enhancing drugs can be very devastating in the long run Some of these long term side effects include baldness heart and liver damage stunted growth in adolescents dizziness and rashes A study done by physiologists from the University of Oslo in Norway suggest the boost given by substances to the body could last for decades They studied the effects of anabolic steroids on mice and data shows that the substances appear to give muscles a sort of memory that allows them to bulk up rapidly when stressed even long after they've been withdrawn According to PBS they found that three months after the drug was withdrawn their muscles grew by 30 after six days of exercise A control group of mice saw growth of just 6 in the same time period This could be a temptation for athlete's looking to enhance their performance Countless athletes have been caught using performance enhancing drugs Most of their reasons being to amplify their performance The physical benefits of performance enhancing drugs can be very tempting to professional athletes but the risks could be a deal breaker The competitive edge gained by using performance enhancing drugs may also be a long term beneficial result but the negative results outweigh the benefits