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Evan Culver Stephanie Hobbs Honors English TAG 27 April 2009 Performance Enhancing Drugs “Athletes should compete fairly. Parents should remind their son or daughter that using a performance-enhancing drug is similar to cheating; however, even more importantly, using could lead to serious health problems or even death ("Performance-enhancing drugs and your). Steroids are illegal when they are used to help an athlete improve performance; however certain over-the-counter substances are not illegal. For example, creatine is sold to anyone. Even though creatine is not illegal, it is considered by some to be a form of cheating because it adds water to muscles faster causing better and faster results (“How does Creatine”). Not only are steroids illegal and dangerous, and in the case of “legal” creatine and also harmful, these drugs are unnecessary. **Even though performance-enhancing drugs make the user stronger and more competitive, they will damage the body, weaken the immune system, and cause long-term damage to joints and ligaments, and may result in depression when usage stops.** Such drugs may damage the body in multiple ways. ” The use of some steroids can possibly stunt the growth potential of people who have not finished growing. This is only possible with certain steroids, and not with others.” ("Side Effects of Steroids"). Performance-enhancing drugs may have positives benefits in certain medical situations. For example, steroids can be used to help abnormally small people grow larger and can also be used in cancer treatments, but steroids should never be used to simply help an athlete excel. These drugs can cause psychological and personality changes, especially in males, because they cause the body to produce high testosterone. Some people refer to a steroid personality change as “Roid Rage”. According to "Side Effects of Steroids", “ Although it’s highly rare (less than 5%), significant psychiatric symptoms have been found in some steroid users, including aggression, increased violence, mania, and even psychosis”. “ A dose fifty times less than a common dose of steroids greatly increased the susceptibility to viral infections and cancer,” says (__New-Medical. Net)__. These drugs cause many irreversible effects on the user’s body. Performance-enhancing drugs, including creatine, are also harmful to the user’s immune system. Creatine draws water from all areas of the body to the muscles, which can lead to dehydration and can also cause permanent kidney and liver damage. According to "Performance-enhancing drugs: Are they", “You are gaining more water weight than muscle weight. The demand of water to the muscles pulls all of the water in the body to them putting the user at risk for dehydration.” Bloggers have said, when using creatine they tend to sweat more. A blogger on “Creatine = sweating” says this, “Hey, when I was on creatine I sweated a lot. I would just drip sweat in the gym, then I got on andro and I don’t sweat at all, so I’m off both now and just working on my diet and using protein and have gained 30 pounds of lean mass”. Increased sweating is due to water rushing from other parts of the body to muscles which increases muscle strength and size. This deprives other organs in the body of water. Creatine users must drink large amounts of water to lessen the risk of dehydration. High doses of steroids reduce the amounts of immune globulin A, G, and M in the blood. Normally, these proteins circulate the blood and attack any invading bacteria, but with high steroid use, they are reduced and put the abuser at a higher risk for illness (“How do anabolic”). Put in layman’s terms, using illegal steroids and/or creatine can result in a weakened immune system and, as a result, an increased potential for sickness. Performance-enhancing drugs and creatine have many long-term effects on the body. Many researchers and doctors have found that there is a higher depression rate among people who have stopped using steroids. They are not sure if this depression is being caused from the absence of steroids or if there was a pre-existing depression problem (Study shows steroid). Once the user stops using creatine, he will lose most of his gained weight because creatine causes water weight. While taking creatine, the user keeps the water and muscle weight on, but as soon as the user stops taking it, he begins to lose body weight ("Performance-enhancing drugs: Are they"). Former steroid users are more likely to have joint and ligament injuries. "Retired professional football players who used performance enhancing drugs appear to be more likely to have suffered certain types of joint and ligament injuries than their contemporaries who did not take such substances, according to a new study. ” (__Study shows steroid__). Performance-enhancing drugs not only hurt the athlete presently, but have long-term effects as well. **Performance-enhancing drugs destroy the body, harm the immune system, and create long lasting physical and psychological issues.** Illegal steroids and over-the-counter creatine become more and more popular every year with not only professional athletes, but high school and college users are becoming involved as well. With all the increased information about the dangers of these drugs, why is the pressure to use them so strong? Outward appearance is only a small part of what pushes young athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs. Even greater is the desire to perform at a higher level. Do performance-enhancing drugs have pronounced effects in the performance of athletes? (Cole and Stigler). Certainly in individual sports like swimming, cycling, skiing, and track, where the difference between a gold medal is measured in hundredths or thousandths of a second, the case could be argued that such drugs were involved in the medal (Cole and Stigler). Athletes like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez seem to prove that these substances give the athletes an unfair advantage. There are many outstanding professional athletes that do not or have not taken performance-enhancing drugs. Hank Aaron, for example, hit 755 home runs in his career and still holds the home run record today without the use of steroids (Weber 8). The purpose of athletics is to teach an individual to compete fairly and honorably. Performance-enhancing destroy these ideals and can also destroy the athlete’s body.

Protein Suplements are the way to go!! No performance-enhancing drugs!