Sports and Science volume 1 issue 1 | Page 11

Anabolic Steroids

What are they?

Anabolic steroids is one of the issues that took the attention of the scientist through history. Disagreements around anabolic steroids have been widespread for decades, discussing issues such as, anabolic steroids effects on men, women or both and their effect on the brain. Nevertheless, the main issue in the research paper will attempt to discuss alternatives to anabolic steroids and how they effective in bodybuilding. To do so, it is essential to know the definition of anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids is the artificial name of testosterone (male sex hormone). It has two effects: anabolic and androgenic effect; anabolic is the growth of skinny muscle and androgenic is the development of sexual features in male and females (“Anabolic Steroid Abuse”). Even though, the proper name for anabolic steroids is anabolic-androgenic steroids, people always call it anabolic steroids for simplicity. Anabolic steroids are taken two forms oral and injectable forms. Injectable is safer than oral because it passes by the liver once to go through the blood stream. However, oral passes twice through the liver once to be broken down and the second time to go through the blood stream. Furthermore, Anabolic steroids were established in 1930s to treat hypogonadism, a disorder in which the testes don’t produce enough amount of testosterone for growth and development. Moreover, during the 1930s, scientists proved that anabolic steroids could comfort the growth of weak muscles, which led to misuse by professional bodybuilders and weightlifters and by athletes in other sports. Steroid abuse has become so widespread in athletics that it can affect the outcome of sports contests (“Anabolic Steroid Abuse “). With this definition of anabolic steroids in mind, this paper will prove that anabolic steroids disadvantages outweigh their advantages, talk about their alternatives, and why these methods work.

By: Saad Ali