Anabolic Steriods. What are they? Where do they come from? Why are they used? From amateurs to pros, from body builders to football players and every sport in between, Steriods, or "roids" as they are referred to, have been in the circle of athletes since the 1950's. Is it vanity that drives athletes to use steriods? Do they understand the end results from the abuse of "roids"? What psychological effects do steriods have on users?

In order to understand the psychological effects of steriods, you must first understand what steriods are and where they come from. The natural form of steriods is the hormone testosterone, which is produced in males by the testes and adrenal glands and by the adrenal glands in females. The body uses these hormones to combat inflammation, stimulate development of bones and muscles, contributes to the growth of skin and hair and can also influnece emotions. Anabolic Steriods, also known as "juice", are a synthetic version of the hormone testosterone. When taken, either orally or injected, these synthetic steriods fool the body into thinking that testosterone is being produced and therefore the body shuts down functions involving testosterone(Mishra 2).

The use of steroids by females is not as common as with men. Again, appearance plays the role here also. Steroids in women causes irreversible masculinization, muscle size and a leaner looking body but promotes the growth of hair on all parts of the body, lowers their voices and decreases the size of their breasts. These characteristics are not as appealing to their appearances or to society, they produce the opposite feeling of self esteem and confidence that men on steroids have, but some females like to compete and do not mind the manly side effects.

Society demands and rewards great athletic ability and success, so young people do not concern themselves with the long term effects of using steriods. They know that "roids" can give them what nature hadn't: strength, muscle size and that lean, hungry look and they can have all these things now! The desire to make the team or to impress their peers is much more immediate than the future prospect of possible damage to the liver, heart, or other vital organs and the long term consequences. The social pressure of appearance is the greatest force that drives young men to the use of steroids. Many young men feel the need to look "masculine," that is strong and muscular. Bodybuilding stresses such muscularity, and some men, and women, abuse anabolic steriods to increase muscle mass and definition (Mishra 2). Steroids are an "ego" drug and society sets the standards. One's appearance plays a critical part of acceptance in society, thus the need to look strong and muscular. To create a body with large and well defined muscles, the "Mr Olympia" look.

Steriods are fast catching up with antibiotics as the most abused class of drugs prescribed by doctors even though they cannot cure one single condition. All steriods can do is supress the bodies ability to express a normal response. Sometimes suppression will give the body a chance to heal itself,

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Approximate Word count = 1293
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)