Steroid Usage: A Look into the Truth Behind Doping

Many people today exercise their body in hopes of fulfilling desires they hold, to be bigger, stronger, or to excel in whichever sport they take an interest in. The drive, the motivation to do such a thing, might unfortunately manifest itself into a relentless pursuit of alternatives to enhance their bodily strength and grade of output. Steroids have since long been a veteran link of sportsmen and regular individuals alike. Only until recently, when studies and research show the extensive damage and effects steroids are prone to cause did steroids truly become widely known for containing the dangerous, critical vices that it conveys today.

Steroids, sometimes known by their street names: roids, juice, weight trainer, or pumpers, are the same or synthetically modified to recreate the same effects hormones found in the human body. Bodily steroids are produced naturally and evoked to support functions such as fighting stress, promoting growth, and overall development. Steroid users, on the other half, provoke said functions purposely to improve their sports performance and their appearances.

Anabolic steroids are artificially produced hormones designed to resemble androgens, the male-type sex hormones in the body. While there are wide arrays of steroids, the most commonly used and powerful is testosterone, the mature male hormone. Testosterone is the leading hormone among young male teenagers, causing them to develop the masculine traits; all healthy young males suddenly experience a sudden surge of body hair and the deepening of the voice.

Steroids nowadays are vastly known to invoke a massive amount of side effects. Cardiovascular disease and coronary artery disease statistics in steroid users have proven phenomenally higher than those who don't retain high steroid counts. Acne is fairy common along steroid users, due to high raises in testosterone. High levels of testosterone also causes equally high levels of estrogen, which can cause some men to develop breast tissue; increased estrogen can also reduce sexual prowess and cause impotence among males. Testicular atrophy, or the attenuation of the male testicles, is also known to happen to long-term users. Females that ingest steroids also suffer the same repercussions, from an increase to genitals, body hair development, to growth of a deep, hoarse voice.

Many sportsmen today use steroids to gain an upper edge in their respective sports, to push against their own limits and strengthen their reluctant bodies in order to maximize their performance. Many scandals and new legislation has brought attention to the wise usage of steroids among the sports community, causing for immediate testing and offensive punishment against those tested positive. Steroids are also used in modern times as body treatment medicine for men, or in some rare cases women, who lack in proper amounts of testosterone which in itself causes myriad problems more than the lack of testosterone itself.

Even including the quite obvious symptoms (although not so obvious to oblivious users), even more diverse and ill side effects include: high blood pressure and heart disease (an already dangerous symptom for those who suffer from natural hereditary heart conditions and have taken up exercise as a combatant), liver damage and cancers, stroke and blood clots, urinary and bowel problems, diarrhea, headaches, aching joints, muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, sleep disorders, increased risk of muscle fatigue, severe acne (as mentioned), and baldness; many of these side effects are irreversible once steroids have been ingested.

Although even the most obvious of the side effects are widely known throughout the public, the main goal of the recent patronizing and "cracking down" on steroid users in sports and personal usage alike, is to create public awareness; public awareness is the state where the public actively recognizes an issue, takes part in it, and fervently band together to contain whatever epidemic is the controversy. The most frequent proponents of the public awareness campaigns for the steroid epidemic today are people who know the danger of said steroids, people who understand the risk and effect of consummation, people who do not want their kids to grow up looking for that "extra edge" in that one sport, and people who just care about the public welfare of a society where masculine - or feminine! - bodily perfection rules all in a world where exterior looks truly accounts for a person's credibility.

You might be wondering, what is this writer's opinion of steroids? Appropriate usage. Research studies have shown that steroids can be positively used to counter harmful diseases and cause growth output in physically deficient individuals, as sufficiently put in this Eastern adage, "A thousand poisons can cure one man, but one can save the heavens." It is appropriate and vastly needed for people to recognize the true essence of steroids and the beneficial uses they can provide to us.