When you hear the word steroids, what comes to mind? A good drug to help heal moderate to severe medical conditions or a bad drug used to enhance one’s physical appearance and competitive endurance?
The thought that comes to most of our minds is bad drug. Many of us know that steroids have been stigmatized into the conception of being a harmful drug because of the people who have chosen to abuse it. Today, numerous accounts involving the usage of steroids are very common amongst professional athletes such as baseball players, body builders, and track stars who have been accused of—and in some cases admitted to – using steroids. Knowing that steroids are prohibited among most governing bodies of sports, this is another factor that contributes to why we view steroids as something harmful in today’s society.
Not only have iconic people abused the usage of steroids but possibly your friends, family, and peers have abused the drug as well. In a recent study, 78.4 percent of steroid users were noncompetitive body builders and non-athletes.
Because of the people that have both subsidized and demoted the usage of steroids, there are many misconceptions about what steroids are, how they work, and why they are dangerous. Even though you, yourself, may never have experimented with steroids, this objective information will hopefully inform you of what steroids are and how the drug can affect people both negatively and positively.
Definition and Process of Steroids
There are many different types of steroids but the most commonly known steroids are anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids are an artificial copy of the male hormone testosterone. Testosterone is naturally produced by the human body. Once injected, the drug’s anabolic or “muscle-building” effects help the body retain protein, a necessary building block for the growth of muscles, bones, and skin. Anabolic steroids cause an increase of muscle mass, strength, and stamina.
Negative Effects from Steroid Usage
Over a course of time, anabolic steroids eventually cause naturally produced testosterone to deteriorate causing hormones to malfunction. Hormones that control mood, reproduction, and appetite are just a few that are strongly affected by steroid use.
One of the most common hormonal defects caused by steroid use is the term “roid rage”. Roid rage can be defined as uncontrolled outbursts of anger, frustration, or combativeness. When too much testosterone enters the body, it can cause your mood hormones to exceed in activity causing a short and extremely sensitive temper.
Another psychological effect caused by steroids is depression. Once your body is addicted to steroids, it can take a long time for all of your hormonal levels to function normally again. For example, if a person has been using steroids for more than 2 months, their body becomes addicted to the synthetic testosterone supplying their muscles. If that person stops the supply, their hormonal levels become dysfunctional because the natural testosterone that was weakened by the synthetic testosterone is too weak to function on its own.With almost no natural testosterone left, this would cause someone’s estrogen levels to increase causing depression.
In order to reproduce natural testosterone, almost all “ex-steroid” users need to be prescribed post cycle drugs that will help suppress estrogen levels and start building natural testosterone. If someone does not seek medical help after using steroids, there is a very likely chance that they will be depressed until their body fully restores its natural testosterone levels on its own.
Other psychological effects caused by steroid use include various forms of mental illness such as mania and schizophrenia. It is statistically proven that people who use anabolic steroids have a higher suicide rate than the general population.
Positive Effects from Steroid Usage
Since the discovery of anabolic steroids in the 1930’s, they have been used for many medical purposes.
· Stimulates the growth of blood cells for people who have leukemia or kidney failure
· Helps treat children that have growth failure in their muscles by causing them to grow normally
· Medical patients with AIDS or cancer can create an appetite and are able to preserve and increase muscle mass
· Prevents bone loss in elderly men
· Produces secondary male traits such as a deeper voice and facial hair for males who have Gender Identity Disorder
· Produces secondary female traits such as breasts and reproduction genes for females who have Gender Identity Disorder
· Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)
· Increases height and weight in boys who have delayed puberty
Although steroids can be used for medical reasons, many people choose to abuse the drug. Anabolic steroids can be very harmful to the body and because of the people who manipulate the drug; it is one of the most controversial topics within the fitness industry. Many anti-steroid users believe that hard training, a healthy diet, and good rest will have the same affects on your body just like steroids, just with out all of the harmful side affects. 
Your beginning was a very good hook to make your target audience curious about your article to want to read more about steriods. The second question you used in your opener was well said because with steriods there is a need for a question like that. There is a need for people to ask that kind of question because there a advantages and disadvantages for steroid usage but from my knowledge about them is that the disadvantages of steroids outweigh the advantages. Your description of how helpful and harmful near the end of your article was well done and was written well to show the advantages and disadvantages of steroid use and how it affects us. The use of the headers for each section was helpful in knowing what points you wanted to make about steroid use. Your use of the photos of the syringes and the over-muscular man helped state your case and what people look like when on continuous steroid use. One thing I would say that might effect people more on the negatives about steroids is to have a picture of someone famous who used them, such as Arnold Schwarzenager, and have a maybe do it as a before, during and after steroid use to see what they are like and how the afterwards isn't very nice to people's bodies. Overall, it was well written with very little or no grammatical errors and spelling errors.
ReplyDeleteHanna,
ReplyDeleteThe questions you posed in your introduction are thought-provoking and pull your reader in. From interpreting your introductory paragraph, I am assuming that I will read about bot the positive and negative uses for steroids. It was productive for you to present both sides of steroid use before focusing on one side specifically.
Your thesis is clear and gives the reader direction. I am wondering if there are direct quotes that you can utilize as a way to support your piece? Additionally, I would attempt to collapse your bulleted list into a more concise paragraph. This restructuring will allow the piece to flow more freely for your reader.
Your concluding paragraph touches on the many different types of steroids before focusing on anabolic steroids. I would suggest you consider omitting the information about the “many different types of steroids” unless you add more supporting information to the preceding text.
In general, this is a well written piece!
I like how in your introduction you asked questions to the reader. It made me think on the subject and also made it look more professional. Also, the formatting was great and it resembled a news article.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did find some problems with you keeping bias away from the matter. Even though you added pros and cons of steroids, the cons really sounded worse to me. And after those two sections, you added a "side effects" section, which also led me to believe you do not approve of steroids. Even if that is your opinion, you should not show it. But you did a great job of inserting indirect bias, if that is what you really wanted to do.
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ReplyDeleteYour post is a good article on information about steroids and is pretty well organized. However in your introduction I believe that you should Start with the definition of steroids instead of asking the questions to the reader by itself, what I mean is to combine the questions with a definition of steroids because if you give the definition and explain how and for what purpose it is used, it will increase the flow of the article. Because in the beginning if you explain and give statistics about steroids before actually explaining what it is, it can seem less organized. In my opinion your visual aids should be placed right at the beginning of the article because it will increase the understanding of how steroids is used by having a visual aid of the instruments used in order to take the drug, and will also increase the understanding of what the effects are of the drug by viewing a picture of a man or woman after years of intake of the drug. I also sense a large amount of bias in the article, because It seems like you put a great amount of emphasis on the negative effects of steroids throughout the article, and ends up sounding like a preach against steroids. I think you should just focus more on giving statistics and facts about steroids, and the different types of steroids and where and how they are distributed instead of putting a large emphasis on the negative effects.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t checked in here for some time as I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are great quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my everyday bloglist. You deserve it my friend link
ReplyDeleteBefore you get yourself any of these, make sure that you consult your doctor. x-steroids.com two reliable sources that are a bit risky because they will charge you a little bit for their services.
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