Steroids (performance enhancement drugs) part 2 - The CONS
Performance enhancement has been going hand in hand with sports for quite a long time. This can take up various forms, ranging from harmless caffeine pills to the much-debated steroid use or doping, as it is commonly called. Steroids are synthetic substances, the artificial version of male-hormones, mostly testosterone. If your body has a high testosterone level, you are bound to be stronger, faster and even bigger than non-users. You can train for longer hours, and as your body recovers twice as fast from the workout, you can repeat the training more frequently, making you even better.
The first part of this article mainly collected the basic arguments voiced by pro-steroid people. Now we are going to take a look at what may go wrong as a result of cycles. When you see the new guy at the gym lifting typical beginner weights, then six weeks later he doubles the weights and the duration of the workout, that is a hint. He's got thicker muscles than you've ever had before and you notice loads of acne-type spots on his back. And that is just the beginning!
-steroids are man-made substances, and a common feature of them is that they are all related to male hormones
-in most of the countries they are illegal, but they are still used by many athletes (very often their coaches command them to use these substances)
-over time they can cause serious health problems, and many of them are irreversible
-the most typical side-effects include extreme aggression, mood-swings and there are many psychiatric side effects – they reshape your personality and change your behaviour
-steroid-users may suffer from severe depression when they stop using steroids (often triggered by the rapid loss of what they have built up with steroids)
-they suffer from irritability, jealousy, paranoia and they make false judgments of other people
-the worst of the mental problems related to steroids is dependency or addiction
-some users may turn to more dangerous and aggressive drugs such as heroin
-there are physical side-effects which are very often gender-specific
-male users’ testicles may shrink, they can experience infertility, they often go bald, their breasts increase in size and they have an increased chance to develop prostate cancer
-female users’ facial hair starts growing, they may have male-patterned baldness, they may have an unpredictable menstrual cycle and their voice may become deeper
-teenage users’ body growth may stop and also puberty may be accelerated which can also cause them to remain short
-steroid use raises a huge number of ethical questions
-it cannot be a part of preparation because it is totally unfair towards non-users – users may have unevenly increased chances to win
-being under pressure is not an excuse for using these substances because it can affect the final results of a competition
-if doping was legal, sports events would only be a question of money – the more money you have, the better quality steroid you can buy
-as a matter of fact, lots of fans turn away from sports when they realise their favourite athletes achieved great things due to steroid use
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