Steroids
In today’s world, the word “steroids” is synonymous with sports, as it has been since steroids were first used. The first known steroid use was in ancient Greece, where the Olympic athletes used natural steroidal substances such as “plant derivatives, all meat diets and animal testicles” to enhance their performances. Throughout time athletes have used all sorts of things to become better athletes, but today’s “anabolic steroids” were discovered in the 1930’s by German scientists. But the first time in modern history that steroid use was notably recognized was at the 1952 Olympics, when Russian weightlifters were seen taking pills before the competition and left the games with a vast amount of medals. After that, the Americans thought they should be on a level playing field with the Russians, and American scientists and doctors began working on developing anabolic steroids. These doctors concluded their research into anabolic steroids in 1958, and had seen a lot of the negative side effects that came along with them. But by then the time had passed to spread the word onto athletes who had an intense competitive drive and would do anything to win. Steroid users in the 1960’s and 1970’s were athletes who competed in things that relied on strength (football, weightlifting), but in the late 70’s and early 80’s, they started spreading to non-athletes and other sports like running and swimming. In the past fifteen to twenty years, steroids have been primarily linked to baseball, although other sports like football and hockey still have their own steroid problems. Recently, Congress has taken a great interest in steroids within baseball and there have been numerous hearings on the topic, with a lot of players being subpoenaed to testify against others. The verdict is still out on what will happen with this.
In the article “What’s wrong with steroids?”, the authors make the statement “Wall Street traders take Ritalin and...
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