| Product: |
Drugs in Sport (Doping) |
| Date: |
25/02/06 (13416 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Some can make you perform better, others make you think you can perform better
Disadvantages: Ruin health and can cause death, addiction, waste of money, people think that you are cheating
When people think of performance enhancing drugs they immediately think of anabolic steroids they don’t realise that lots of normal everyday foodstuffs, or over the counter remedies are classed as performance enhancing in some sports. I’m an amateur sports person i.e. I do sport for fun and fitness but enter running road races and play a team sport in a league. I have read up about performance enhancing drugs for many reasons. One of the reasons is to find out why some sports people get banned for taking cough remedies or pot, and how would these “performance enhancers” help them.
The best source to go to see what drugs is banned in which sports, and whether in and out of competition, is the World Anti Doping Agency (www.wada-ama.org). However you have to do your own research to find out why and in some cases it’s common sense.
The main types of performance enhancing drugs are:
Stimulants
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1. Caffeine
Caffeine, yes the kind you get in your cup of coffee, is a performance-enhancing drug. It is suppose to help sports people who run, cycle and play sports like football by increasing alertness, decision making and endurance. In fact if you go to the UK athletics website you will see under the performance section an advert for a well-known caffeine based drink. However the side-affects of caffeine include increased nervousness, trembling and diarrhoea. Also caffeine is a diuretic, which is not good if you are sweating a lot, as you will get dehydrated. The International Olympic Committee have been banning, and then removing caffeine from their list of performance enhancing drugs for decades so unfortunately for some competitors they have lost medals for drinking too much coffee. Currently caffeine is not banned see www.wada-ama.org
2.Cocaine
Cocaine is illegal in most countries of the world, and is a stimulant leading to the speeding up of brain activity, heart rate and breathing rate. As the effects of cocaine are not long lived there would be no purpose in taking it as a sports person. One famous sports person banned for their cocaine addiction was Maradonna who subsequently suffered 2 heart attacks for cocaine overdosing.
3.Ephedrine
This stimulant is found in lots of cough, flu and cold remedies. It is banned by the IOC in urine concentrations of 10micrograms/ml. In my opinion if you are that sick to take a cold remedy containing ephedrine you shouldn’t be competing anyway.
Cannabinoids
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Hash, pot etc. is illegal in most countries and I cannot see the point of taking them if you are a sports competitor, as I cannot see how they would stimulate you or aid your concentrate.
Alcohol
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According to the IOC this substance is illegal in certain sports, which is obvious as a drunken motorcyclist would be very dangerous. However in some sports such as snooker this drug could be classed as performance- enhancing as some alcoholic snooker players have admitted to drinking alcohol to calm their nerves. (Have a look at the BBC sport snooker section.)
Beta-blockers
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These work by reducing the heart rate and so are ideal for those sports where you want to reduce your hands and body from shaking i.e. archery, snooker. You are actually allowed to take beta-blockers out of competition in all IOC listed sports except for archery.
Anabolic Steroids
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Track and field athletics as become associated with a string of anabolic drug scandals. These range from the old Eastern block drug administration programs to Ben Johnson winning the 1988 Olympic 100 metres and then failed a drugs test for anabolic steroids to more recently the scandal of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. As most of the other reviews have listed anabolic steroids have some serious side effects including the case where Heidi Krieger, an East German athlete became a man, Andreas Krieger due to the amount of hormones given.
Hormones
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Insulin and growth hormone have been used by body builders and are now being used by other sports competitors to aid in the build up of muscle. Both have serious side-affects and insulin could lead to sudden death.
Prohibited methods
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This section includes enhancement of oxygen take up which is well know to be used by cyclists doing endurance events like the Tour de France, this can be done by using drugs, EPO, or simply be a matter of increasing blood volume by transfusing own blood back before a race.
Pain killers
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Included in this group are non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) such as ibuprofen and paracetamol. Each of these drugs has side effects e.g. cause stomach problems, and some people are affected in small doses whilst others will never be affected. Most sports people resort to using these drugs when they have minor sprains and pains, and still want to compete. However in recent times it has been advocated that taking NSAID’s before hard exercise will mean that you will be in less pain at the later stages of an event i.e. a marathon or afterwards.
Supplements
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These include vitamin and mineral tablets and stuff like creatine. These are mention because the EU thinks that some of these supplements full under the drug category. Basic vitamins and minerals i.e. iron will aid any sports person who is not eating a proper diet. In some sports weight and diet control is really important and therefore participants are put on a strict diet if they are female they can be iron deficient so in cases like this taking a supplement is a good idea. However most supplements are a waste of money.
One well-known sports doctor, Dr Tim Noakes, makes the point in his books and articles on performance enhancing drugs that the main reason to take them in any active sport is to increase the speed of your recovery from training which in turn will allow you to train harder. Anabolic steroids, hormones and blood doping are the best methods to do this. However he points out that some of the benefits of some of the other drugs are simply due to the “placebo affect” i.e. your mind thinks that you will perform better taking this substance so you do.
Personally
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Whilst some argue that all athletes should be allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs in the form of steroids, growth hormones and blood doping I would argue against it.
Firstly I have friends who trained in seriously in sports including speed skating, swimming, track and field athletics and gymnastics as children. Most of them started their serious training around the age of 10 and gave up serious competitive sport around the age of 18 for various reasons. As some under 18 year olds do end up competing with adults particularly in swimming and gymnastics you would be advocating giving these drugs to children who are still growing. The knowledge gained by noting the side effects of the East German sports doping regime would know that giving steroids to growing children leads them to suffer health problems for the rest of their lives. I am personally against taking performance-enhancing drugs because they can ruin long-term health and cause death.
However as I stated before I am an amateur sports person. I have drunk coffee a few hours before training and have used NSAID for minor injuries before matches to keep down a swollen ankle, when my team has had no subs. As I have a full time job if I am tired I have a habit of drinking coffee because with me one cup of filter coffee keeps me a wake for a long time. In fact I can only drink one cup of coffee a day otherwise I will get no sleep for that 24 hours. Will this have a long term affect on my health? If I keep drinking coffee I will eventually get really fatigued which is why in summer I stop drinking it. This is painful because for a few days I feel absolutely awful.
I like doing sports for the fun of doing it and the high you can achieve after doing exercise, and having to use pain killers numbs that pain. I personally think when you get to a state where you have to use drugs to perform then you have lost one of the reasons to enjoy sport.
Summary: If you have to use drugs then you are not having fun
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