The Harmful Effects of Sports Doping

The sports industry is an incredibly harsh, fast paced and competitive industry that places immense pressure on all who are involved in it. An undesirable effect of this is that countless athletes are left reaching for results that they simply at said point cannot achieve; which leads them to look for anything that will aid them in reaching their goal and not disappointing themselves or their families or fans.

This means that they turn to performance enhancing drugs, meaning that they will introduce drugs such as muscle building anabolic steroids, insulin and human growth hormones in order to alongside training give them an unfair advantage against opponents. There are one hundred substances banned by wada and yet one in ten athletes or more use performance enhancing drugs, thirty nine of the world's best rugby players use performance enhancing drugs while 50 of the best American football players use them and 9 of the last 30 winners of the Tour de France have been caught using them. (Fitch, 2012)

This goes to show that this issue is not just located or focused on one specific sport; it in fact is a widespread issue that WADA have been consistently trying to tackle and bring to an end. A way in which WADA is trying to tackle the use of performance enhancing drugs is by taking samples of blood and urine and freezing them in storage in order to re test it when another testing technique is starting to be used by the organisation.

Unfortunately, performance enhancing drugs are seeming to be increasingly marketed towards young bodybuilders, a victim of this and his own ignorance is Gary Whitaker who was a bodybuilder who used steroids for a period of 15-years, three times a day. This lead to kidney failure and the need to have a kidney transplant and dialysis three times a day, he explains that due to the fact that he took them on a daily basis multiple times a day he felt that without them he was in pain and craved it. Which some would say is how an addict feels during the period of withdrawal. (Sports Doping - Winning At Any Cost?, 2019)

Dr Peter angel which is a sports scientist states that the official number is only 60, 000 people who regularly use performance enhancing drugs. However, he estimates that the actual accurate number is within the 100, 000’s of people. Side effects are ulcers in the stomach and testicular atrophy and within the last 10 years there has been a 600% increase in people who have developed said illnesses ; there is also a spike in infections due to shared use of needles. (Angell et al. , 2012)

In addition to this, Harrison Pope who has been a Harvard researcher since the 1980s said that 30% of users become addicts due to the performance enhancing drugs activating the same receptors as opioids and this was tested on hamster in order to increase validity. Coupled with this, it also seemingly causes brain damage as shown by a study that was essentially a comparison test which included users, previous users and control groups. The study tested the visuospatial sketchpad within both groups and found that the steroid users had terrible results, previous users of performance enhancing drugs did just as badly which leads to believe that there is a higher risk for dementia and alzheimer's within the user's future. (Pope et al. , 2013)

There are worrying affect on the heart which are displayed on an echocardiogram and a central graph that showed the users have a much less coherent heartbeat. In a healthy heart 55% of the blood is pumped out from the ventricles; a weakened heartbeat pumps only 30-40%.

Sports doping has caused 30 athletes from the Beijing Olympics and 10 athletes from the London Olympics to be tested negative after their samples were retested years later. Ways that many famous athletes have avoided this Is by using synthetic or another humans urine an example of this is Mike Tyson who avoided testing negative for years. (Sports Doping - Winning At Any Cost?, 2019)

Sports doping is not just an issue that affects athletes it is now is being endorsed by young men and women who are trying to appeal to members of the other sex and to conform to society's beauty standards, unfortunately it is increasingly simple to buy performance enhancing drugs as they are sold on black markets and social media. Though these items are dangerous and not FDA approved; they are not illegal and this is stated in videos that endorse these products without hesitation. ('Doping in sport: Drug use 'fast becoming a crisis' - Nicole Sapstead', 2019)

In order to combat WADA’s efforts, scientists have come up with a new concept which allows athletes to alter their DNA ; this is a permanent procedure and permanent change to their bodies genetic basis and it's called Gene doping. In addition to this there has been a study by the University of Florida on how not to lose muscle mass as you grow older this study was carried out on mice. (Page, 2019)

On the other hand, sports doping can be seen as a means to increase productivity and aid in progression within an athletes career as they are still engaged in gruelling training sessions in order to reach the standard that they want. It seems unfair and ignorant to give the credits to the drugs while the athlete has put in the hours and the training in order to get to the point that they have reached. In addition to this, only one organisation determines the rules of what can and cannot be classified as sports doping which seems to be an extremely biased process that forces athletes to abide by rules that have not been questioned or researched by any other organisation or by any other standards or perspectives

The Olympics preaches uniting different countries and ethnicities on the basis of their love and appreciation of sports and inspiring others and future generations ; when in reality one quarter of their funding goes towards sports doping and how to stop it when it should be focused on underprivileged athletes that are taking part in the Olympics. Allowing them to feel more confident and increase their own personal self-worth which in itself could then turn to inspire millions.

In conclusion Sports doping has fatal effects such as brain damage, kidney failure and heart problems and must be tackled and stopped however anti sports doping organizations such as WADA need to increase research on how to spread awareness of its effects and promote sports doping recovery and information programmes, not lead through fear and worry.