Available in the form of dietary supplement or prescription
medication, performance-enhancing drugs are widely sold over-the-counter. In
the form of either oral or injection, these drugs include: anabolic-androgenic
steroids (AAS) a.k.a. “Di-anabol” – commonly use to improve the physical
structure of athletes’ body, steroid precursors such as andro-stenedione and
dehydroepiandrosterone, creatine, ephedra or ephedrine alkaloids a.k.a “ma
huang”, erythropoietin, and growth hormones. Within the shortest possible time,
most of the young athletes are keen to improve their physical appearance and
athletic abilities. For this reason, a lot of them are tempted to use ergogenic
drugs.
Anabolic-androgenic
steroids (AAS) a.k.a. “Di-anabol” is one of the most commonly abused drugs in
sports. In most cases, the number of male
athletes who are taking steriods outweighs the number of female athletes. The
use of streoids can trigger multiple organ failure that causes an increased
risk of infertility and testicular atrophy in the long-run. Abusing steroids can
also lead to pre-mature balding, acne, increase in blood pressure, left
ventricular hypertrophy, muscle sprains / ligament sprains, and few cases of
peliosis hepatitis, liver cysts, and hepatocellular carcinoma. In worst cases, needle
sharing in injectable steroids and other ergogenic drugs increases the
athletes’ risk of having HIV, hepatitis B and C.
The use of ergogenic drugs can trigger mild to severe depression, eating disorder, aggression, and suicidal tendencies. In fact, steroids precursors could cause male gynecomastia and virilization among the female athletes. Growth hormones can lead to risk of high blood pressure, jaw enlargement, and pre-mature physeal closure whereas creatine can cause unexplainable weight gain, minor gastrointestinal discomfort, and muscle cramps.
Ephedra are stimulants use in treating asthma and Stokes-Adams. Excessive amount of ephedra causes toxicity in the human body. Similar to steroids, ephedra can lead to a life-threatening cardiovascular toxicity including myocardial injury, thrombosis, atherogenic diseases, and vasospasm. It can also trigger high blood pressure, arrhythmias, anxiety, tremors, insomnia, seizures, paranoid psychoses, cerebral vascular accident, myocardial infarction, ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke and untimely death.
The presence of ergogenic drugs can be traced through the athletes’ blood samples. In case athletes have taken steroids during off-season, it will be difficult on the part of medical examiners to detect the presence of streoids substances days before the Olympic game. Even though there are medical techniques which can be use to trace ergogenic drugs in the blood samples of young athletes, it is unfortunate that some of them are aware on how they make the drug testing result turn negative despite the use of these drugs.
Young athletes are practicing doping because of peer-pressure. It is unfortunate that some of them are not aware of the long-term socio-economic and health consequences of abusing these drugs. To educate young athletes about the adverse health consequences of using ergogenic drugs, health care professionals should work together with parents, community members, and sports trainers.
