Doping in Sports Fear the Health Effects

History
Doping originated long ago, since the beginning of time. In the early history-mid-century,
warriors all around the world ate hearts, brains and livers of animals in the belief that they
would become more intelligent, swifter and stronger. In pre-history, West Africa tribesmen
consume cola nitida to improve performance and China commanders ingested Ma Huang
for various stimulation purposes. In 5 BC and 3 BC, Greek athletes consumed special diets
such as dried figs, wine, wet cheese, meat and a variety of mushrooms to improve
performance like in their Olympic Games. In Roman era, stimulants mixed with alcohol were
consumed by roman gladiators to recover faster from tiredness and injuries. In Ancient
America, citizens in Peru and Mexico ate coca leaves for endurance in competitions. All
these evidences are sufficient to prove that doping did not just begin but had its roots long
time ever since the beginning of time.

Source
Due to the increasing use of doping in many sport games, by the 1920s doping had become
evident that drug restrictions were essential in 1963. France was the first country to enact
an anti-doping legislation in response to the proliferation of drug usage in sports. Please
refer below for the timeline of the history of doping.

Our objectives are:

Educate the public and give them sufficient knowledge on this topic to allow them to
think wisely when it comes to sporting integrity
Investigate past events of the athletes who doped
Examine the diverse effects of doping on the human body
Provide the many causes and temptations of doping to increase public awareness
Provide suggestions as to how the doping cases can be resolved
Suggest ways to prevent further doping cases from occurring

Definitions

Dictionary.com:
To administer a narcotic to: was doped up for the operation.
To add a narcotic to: They doped his drink before robbing him.
To administer a performance-enhancing substance to (an athlete).
To subject (an athlete) to blood doping.

The free Dictionary by Farlex
The use of a drug or blood product to improve athletic performance
Merriam-Webster
The use of a substance (as an anabolic steroid or erythropoietin) or technique (as blood
doping) to illegally improve athletic performance
Longman English Dictionary Online
The practice of using drugs to improve performance in a sport doping scandal/ban/test and
etc.
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary
To give a person or an animal drug in order to make them perform better or worse in a
competition
Wiktionary
The use of drugs to improve athletic performance
The On-line Medical Dictionary
The action of administering a drug to someone before a sports event (originally to a horse
before a race), the substance thus administered.
Our Definition
Doping refers to the use of performance-enhancing drugs that is not approved by the law or
violates the World Anti-Doping Code Doping in Sports Fear the Health Effects





Anti-Doping Organisations

USADA - United States Anti-Doping Agency
"The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is the national anti-doping organization for the
Olympic movement in the United States. The U.S. Congress recognized USADA as "the
official anti-doping agency for Olympic, Pan American and Paralympic sport in the United
States." We are dedicated to eliminating the practice of doping in sport, and to preserving
the well-being of sport and ensuring the health of athletes through research initiatives and
educational programs." (Taken from USADA website: http://www.usantidoping.org/)
This website's aim is to promote healthy sporting. The authorities organise campaigns to
inform the public - including athletes - about the various side effects of doping and its
consequences such as a long ban from games, spending a large amount of time in jail and its
other health effects. These health effects not only occur in the body of the doper but also in
the doper's future generation. Overall, this website provides a variety of resources from
which viewers can gain in depth knowledge about the issue of doping.

World Anti-Doping Agency
"The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is the international independent organization
created in 1999 to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against doping in sport in all
its forms.
Composed and funded equally by the sports movement and governments of the world,
WADA coordinated the development and implementation of the World Anti-Doping Code
(Code), the document harmonizing anti-doping policies in all sports and all countries."
(taken from WADA website: http://www.wada-ama.org/en/)
This website's main focus is about the outreach of anti-doping movement around
the world and the different types of programmes that are used for anti-doping education.
The website reaches to a large audience as the athletes can view information on doping
while younger people can take part in a quiz to test their knowledge. The website also
provides the Anti-doping code as well as different languages so as to accommodate
different viewers.


International Association of Athletics Federation
"The International Athletic Foundations (IAAF) primary mission is to charitably assist the
world governing body for track and field athletics - the International Association of Athletics
Federations - and its affiliated national governing bodies in perpetuating the development
and promotion of athletics world-wide. Through its support of a variety of programmes and
projects including educational, scientific, technical, promotional and social activities, the
Foundation strives to aid athletes, administrators, coaches, national athletics federations
and others to practice all forms of athletics in the best of conditions." (Taken from IAAF
website: http://www.iaaf.org/antidoping/news/index.html) Although the organisation
mentions about anti-doping, this website does not focus much on it as it concentrates much
more on other type of information such as competition details, statistics, news and
information on athletes. However, the anti-doping of the website section has many rules,
law codes and many other valuable details for all athletes to abide by when taking part in
sporting competitions. Furthermore, it provides information such as doping control statistics
and the sanctioned athletes for the enlightenment of its audience.

















Forms of Doping

Gene Doping
It is the manipulation of cells or genes to enhance the bodys sporting performance.
Modifying genes enables faster reaction, increase in physical strength etc. Examples of gene
doping are: changing of the cell growth stimulating proteins, proliferating muscle capacity
and increasing blood supply in the body. Genes can be injected into muscles to prevent
muscle wasting disorder and this camouflages with the other human genes thus making
gene doping almost impossible to detect.
Gene doping began in the year 2001 when the International Olympic Committee Medical
Commission came together to discuss the adverse effects of gene therapy on sports. This
action was immediately followed by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2002.

Blood Doping
It is the act of increasing the number of red blood cells (haemoglobin) in the body with
circulation to enhance the athletes performance by increasing aerobic capacity.
Blood doping detection will be to search for any unnatural huge change of the number of
RBCs (RED BLOOD CELLS). A huge change will determine whether blood doping has or has
not occurred. Another way is to test the urine and blood of athletes although it may be
unreliable as athletes usually deny having doped with blood.

Temptations
According to Nancy Cullen, a sports psychology consultant for the University, temptation to
use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs simply comes down to the rigors and
pressure of elite competition and the desire to win. There are a few temptations that causes
the athletes to dope, they are:
(1) Athletes dope when the drug test system is easy to avoid detection,
(2) When there are a lot of competitors taking part in the event,
(3) When there is an enormous amount of prizes and (4) when the drug has not much effect
on the athletes bodies.
When drug system is easy to avoid, athletes have a tendency to dope as they will
think they even if they dope, there would still be a very high percentage that they get away
with it and win those marvellous prizes and huge sums of money.
Furthermore, when there are many competitors taking part in an event, athletes also
tend to dope as many doping tests would be conducted and in order to save time,
authorities would usually do a haphazard job of it. This encourages the athletes to dope too.

Doping in Sports Fear the Health Effects
This reason can be quite obvious. The number and quality of prizes such as an
expensive Rolls Royce for example would act as a great incentive for athletes to
dope. They think they it is very worth it to risk their lives for such a huge amount of
money.
When drugs have no effect on the athletes; athletes do not need to worry about the
health effects that it may have on their bodies. This will also encourage them to
dope as they have nothing to lose or get hurt by doping and if they are lucky, they
may even win themselves some good prizes to bring back home.
















Pressure to Dope
There is also a pressure to dope as athletes believe that everyone is doing it and in order for
them to be in the top 10 positions, doping inevitably comes into the picture.

Peer Pressure
Due to peer pressure, athletes would be afraid of being called a coward or goodie-two-
shoes by their friends and will try to break the laws and rules enforced by the sports
organizers in order to show to their friends that they are very brave and cool. This usually
leads to the athletes doping in the sports events.

Family problems
Another example would be the athletes family problems. Family problems may include
fighting and shouting between parents, physical abuse and low family income. Violence in
the family will result in the children having a bad influence or them unable to receive
enough love and care from their parents and thus will do anything in order to attract their
parents attention. These problems may fuel the athletes to dope in sports events to ensure
that they secure a $2000 for their family to buy daily necessities and better improve family
lives.
Debts
Debts, I can say, would be the most common cause of doping for almost more than 40% of
all the athletes. It is like a never-ending bottomless pit of doom that adults usually fall in and
never come back out, but sometimes often rarely, athletes manage to get themselves back
on earth. Athletes usually get themselves into huge debts due to too much gambling. After
that, they try to resolve this problem by borrowing money from loan sharks but little do
they know that it actually adds on to their problems rather than solve it. Loan sharks start to
threaten them and they have to resort to doping to claim huge sums of money in order to
repay their gigantic debts.





Health Effects
Mental Effects

Aggression and anxiety
Consumption of too many drugs will lead to aggression and anxiety. For females especially,
they will seem to develop more male characteristics. For males, too much aggression may
lead to the murdering or doing illegal things to satisfy or relieve the surge of immense
anger. Anxiety too also plays a part by making the athletes paranoid over small and trivial
matters.
Less in control of their aggressions than they used to be.

Psychological disturbances
Athletes who are doping or used to dope have high risks of getting psychological
disturbances such as sharp headaches. Stimulant doping drugs may lead to severe migraines
in the athlete. This will affect the athletes performance in their event, totally opposite of
what the athlete really wants to improve focus and strength so as to accomplish their goal.
Sometimes, they may also feel very confused and unable to think clearly. Other effects
include mania, withdrawal (become anti-social) and mood swings. Depression may also
occur in several cases. Some dopers also become very dependent on others. The dopers
personality may also change significantly and drugs are usually the direct cause of it. A
doper may also tend to tremble more often.

Emotional Effects

Unusual patterns of behaviour
Drugs may cause an athlete to suffer an emotional breakdown. Perhaps, this may even
result in depression or in the worst case scenario committing suicide. This may seem very
extreme to us but athletes do use this method as they find they are too depressed and by
dying, can resolve all their problems.


Mental Anorexia
This term means to be fearful of gaining weight, eating certain specific foods, be secretive
and not wanting to talk about problems and last but not least over exercising. This mental
block of the person will cause him to be unable to grow healthily and maintain a healthy
lifestyle. Anorexia nervosa is also the direct opposite of bulimia nervosa, which means to
stuff oneself with food so as to relieve stress.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
It is a type of mental illness that causes someone to have repeated unwanted thoughts. A
very good example would be: fearing that everything you touch has germs and bacteria and
thus you keep heading to the bathroom to wash your hands. This illness is very severe. It
can take over your life, hurt your relationships and worst of all limit your abilities in
whatever you do.

Doping in Sports Fear the Health Effects
Scientists have been researching on what causes OCD and they believe that not having a
brain chemical called serotonin may be the problem.

Physical Effects
There are numerous physical effects of doping on the athletes. However, we will only be
elaborating and giving in-depth analysis to only a few effects that we have chosen.

Addiction
This is what happens when athletes rely too much of doping drugs to win and clinch that
gold medal. Their thirst for winning increases as time goes by and the athletes get stronger
and harder to defeat. In order to fulfil their thirst, the athletes would take even stronger
drugs in a higher quantity, thus inevitably resulting to addiction.

Unusual Male Characteristics in Females and vice versa
The resultant effect of taking too much anabolic agents into the human body may disrupt or
even cause the entire body system to go haywire. This may include the development of
breasts and the hardening of testicles for the males and development of facial hair and
increased aggression for the females. These effects have truly devastating effects on the
human body as you can see.

Thickening of the blood
Drugs like diuretics can cause the blood to thicken in the blood vessels of the human body.
These thickening and slowing down the blood flow inside the body may lead to disastrous
effects. Decreased blood flow may lead to strokes, heart attacks or to the worst extent,
death.

Headaches
Stimulant doping drugs may lead to severe migraines in the athlete. This will affect the
athletes performance in their event, totally opposite of what the athlete really wants to
improve focus and strength so as to accomplish their goal.
Effects on Future Generation
An athletes doping past may well come back to haunt on his or her children. -
Playthegame magazine 2008 article written by Kristen Sparre. So what exactly can dope do
to an athletes child? We will touch on 2 main pointshigher chances of miscarriages and
sicknesses like allergies and skin problems.

Miscarriages
In an interview carried out by Dr. Spitzer, he found out that having children turned out to be
a very big problem for the former athletes who used to dope. Among the athletes
interviewed, 15 babies were lost during pregnancy and 3 were still unborn. It was later
found that the risk of miscarriages and stillborn was 32 times higher than the average
population in Germany. This shows how drugs could affect the chances of getting a child and
such aftereffects cannot be removed once it has been done.
Doping in Sports Fear the Health Effects

Child Handicaps
Among the 69 children of the doping athletes who survived, many struggle with various
physical handicaps such as skin diseases, asthma, allergies, crippled arms, legs, feet and
many had metabolic problems. It was also found out that children whose mother used to
dope suffer more handicaps than father who used to dope even though if either the father
or the mother was a doper, the child would most probably have handicaps. With all these
handicaps, imagine the lives of the children when they grow up unable to play outdoor
sports and activities and who is the cause for all that. It is their parents responsible.

Case Studies

Michael Phelps
Type of Sportsperson: Swimmer
Achievements: 14 Olympic Gold Medals, 7 world records in swimming, athlete with the
most number of medals in a single Olympic Games Drug used: Drug commonly known as
cannabis or marijuana (Cannabis Sativa)
Time banned: 3 months
How long had he been using the drugs: Not known but it is said to have taken place in
November, 2008

Marion Jones
Type of Sportsperson: Track and Field Athlete
Achievements: 5 Summer Olympic medals in Sydney in 2000
Drug used: Anabolic steroid commonly known as the clear or THG, scientifically known as
Tetrahydrogestrinone
Time banned: 2 years suspension from sports and 6 months in jail
How long had she been using the drugs: During her trainings before the
Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics

Doping in Sports Fear the Health Effects






The eight ways and reasons to stop doping - Everyone can play their part

So how exactly do we stop is threat called doping? After a lot of research, and
compilation, we have come out with 8 of what we consider the best methods to: (1) Stop
and turn the tables on dopers, (2) Send a message to athletes that doping is illegal, (3)
Educate the public about the harmful effects of doping, (4) How dopers can kick the habit

1. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is fervently
trying to educate athletes about the harmful effects of doping.
2. UNESCO is also recommending its countries to implement anti-doping trainings
3. According to Michael Ashenden, players who need medical help to finish a race should
not participate in the first place.
4. In the book doping, author Jason Porterfield suggest that athletes should not dope to set
a good example to young people.
5. The best technology has to remove all outside influences, and ensure for quick and fair
punishment.
6. A no tolerance front must be put up, and a strong force must be created to uphold it.
7. A survey must be conducted among athletes and coaches to ensure that they are aware
of the punishment and negative effects of doping.
8. Publish an educational guidebook of young people to raise awareness of doping












Summary
In a nutshell, doping is harmful be it to the human body or to our personal reputation. It can
seriously harm the body in many unexpected ways and it can also input male features into
females and vice versa. In the context of our own personal reputation, we will also lose the
trust of the people who believe in us and most importantly, the society. All these effects will
adversely affect us in one way or another and it is best to stay away from them by
controlling ourselves from taking drugs in a sports event despite of the immeasurable thirst
for victory. "WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING, it's the only thing." This is the often repeated
comment of a famous National Football League coach, the late Vince Lombardi.
(Quoted from: http://www.bookrags.com/researchtopics/drugs-and-sports-os/).

This thirst for victory is usually the terrorizing factor that encourages the act of doping.
Moreover, if winning is everything, then everyone will do anything to be able to win.
However, coaches and trainers are sometimes are seen as the major obstacles to drug-free
sports. They are usually the one who hands out drugs to the athletes. Therefore, athletes
and coaches should also be educated. The main reason for doping for almost 80% of all
athletes is usually for... thats right, its MONEY!! Athletes dope for many reasons ranging
from family problems, peer pressure and debt problems. These reasons will instigate the
athletes to dope in order to win those prizes for the benefit of themselves or their family.
Therefore, in order to resolve the doping problem in the modern world, government should
also play a part by educating the public or providing subsidies or special privileges for the
poor and the needy so that they, the poor and the needy would not resort to underhand
means of getting cash, almighty dollars, banknotes or chips.