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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Effects of Abusing Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

Use of performance enhancing drugs in the sports is commonly called as doping. These drugs are used by the athletes to improve the performance and this gives them an unfair advantage over other athletes. This is why many sports ban the use of performance enhancing drugs. The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical by most international sports organizations. The use of these drugs are banned because they pose health problems and the equality of opportunity for athletes. These performance enhancing drugs are used illegally by athletes in many sports.

Commonly used drugs in the sports to enhance the performance are anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and EPO. In all these drugs, hormones are used because hormones are produced by glands and are transported around the body in the bloodstream and these hormones helps in the growth of the organs and tissue. Anabolic steroids are drugs that resemble testosterone produced in the testes of males and it helps in the muscle growth. Human growth hormone promotes physical development, particularly the growth of bone. Erythropoietin (EPO) stimulates the production of red blood cells in bone marrow and it also regulates the concentration of both RBC and haemoglobin in the blood. Since red blood cells shuttle oxygen to the cells, including muscle cells, it enables the athletes to operate aerobically.

Negative effects of these drugs on the athlete are, use of these drugs can put the future of the athlete at risk because of the bans and penalties imposed by the different sports organizations. Second, and even more important, these drugs might put your health at risk.

There are also some tests to detect the drug usage by the athletes which are quick, easy and reliable. These tests are called as the anti doping tests. One of the problem in the drug detection is that, the performance enhancing drugs used by the athletes are also produced naturally in the human body.

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