Steroids: Tainting your record

"Bonds swings and makes contact. Could it be? Yes! Homerun number 71 for Barry Bonds. We have witnessed history." These were the words that flowed when San Francisco Giants' player Barry Bonds broke Mark McGwire's single season homerun record. A few years later, allegations that Bonds was using several different performance enhancing drugs to help improve his game entered the media.

According to a Sports Illustrated magazine article written in March of 2006 quoting the book, A Game of Shadows, written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, "Bonds was using two designer steroids referred to as the Cream and the Clear, as well as insulin, human growth hormone, testosterone decanoate, a fast-acting steroid known as Mexican beans, and trenbolone, a steroid created to improve the muscle quality of cattle."

When Major League Baseball (MLB) dug further into these accusations, they found what was written about Bonds to be entirely true. With this new proof Bonds' single season homeruns of 73 and career 762 homerun records must appear, now, with a asterisk marks the seasons to inform everyone that that record was tainted. Steroids have been popular in sports, none more so than baseball.

Steroids can be very helpful when it comes to medicine. They can help your body return back to strength after open heart surgery, or even help you to fight certain types of cancer.

However, when used improperly or for the wrong reasons they can be very harmful. A steroid is a terpenoid lipid characterized by its sterane core and additional functional groups. The core is a carbon structure of four fused rings: three cyclohexane rings and one cyclopentane ring. The steroids vary by the functional groups attached to these rings and the oxidation state of the rings. If you over work the muscle or use too much of the muscle combined with steroid use, it could possibly explode the muscle.

There are also certain laws being enforced about steroids in regards to the selling and usage of them. When the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 became a law, steroids were placed into the same category as barbiturates and narcotic painkillers by defining them as schedule III substances. This law put possession punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of $1000 or more. In fact, selling steroids, even possessing steroids with intent to sell may face up to five years in prison plus parole and fines.

In short term effects of steroid use includes liver tumors, jaundice, fluid retention, and high blood pressure.

For men it can additionally mean shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, infertility, baldness, and development of breasts.

With use in women it may also cause growth of facial hair, changes in or cessation of the menstrual cycle, and a deepened voice.

In adolescents children it can cause stunted growth through premature skeletal maturation and accelerated puberty changes.

The long term side effects however are much worse. This can result in paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, delusions, and impaired judgment stemming from feelings of invincibility.

Steroids are found in sports ranging from football to weight lifting. In today's media you see it mostly in baseball from players like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds. It still stretches even more recent to players such as Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez.

However, it has reached out to other sports. In football athletes such as, Lyle Alzado, who passed away in 1992 of brain cancer which he attributed to the use of anabolic steroids, though doctors stated the steroids, but were not exactly the main cause. Even the National Hockey League has a steroid problem with 700 players admitting to taking performance enhancing drugs at least once in their career.

Athletes take steroids to get an edge up on their competitors. Instead of using alternatives such as, AndrosteDERM and DermaGAIN, athletes revert back to using actual steroids because it's proven to give them the results they need or want.