1. Society’s View of Performance
Enhancing Supplements:
Anabolic Steroids and Human
Growth Hormones (H.G.H.)

2. What are they?
Anabolic Steroids Human Growth Hormones
• Steroids are synthetic versions of • HGH works a lot like anabolic
hormones your body produces steroids but your body produces
naturally. them naturally
• Main concern is anabolic • No way to test for them
steroids, from the male hormone
testosterone. Which increases
size/strength and helps body
recover faster from workouts
• Testing can be done, but one test
is needed for every steroid
• Cortisone and Birth control pills
are legal non-anabolic steroids

3. Usage in Olympics
• Russians beating Americas in space race and
Olympics. Russian weight lifting coach got
drunk and told the American weight lifting
coach they were injecting their athletes with
steroids. American coach went home and
created an even more powerful one. Huge lift
for America when they beat the Russians.

4. Media Influences-
(Creating a false image)
• Wrestling- USA was fighting in Iran (Hulk Hogan
beats the Iron Sheik) Moral victory for USA
population
• Movies- Rocky, Arnold S., Rambo (Super
Americans taking on the world)
• Mr. and Mrs. Olympia competitions- Arnold is the
poster child for P.E.S. He won Mr. Olympia 7
times, once at only 19 years old.
• Professional Baseball heroes (Canseco, McGwire,
Giambi, Bonds)

5. Rocky Younger/Older

6. Arnold Younger/Older

7. Hulk Hogan and The Iron Sheik

8. Robinson/Bonds

9. The truth
• Hulk Hogan admitted his body was from 12
years of steroid use
• Rocky/Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) charged
with importing performance enhancing drugs
• Arnold also publicly admitted steroid use for
his competitions
• Canseco wrote a book saying 80% of baseball
players were taking steroids. He also named a
few names (including McGwire and Bonds)

10. Why People Use Them?
Medical Advantages, Psychological
Reasons, and Competitive
Advantages

11. Medical Advantages
Anabolic Steroids Human Growth Hormones
• Muscle wasting • Child Growth
• Burn victims • Muscle Mass
• Cancer patients • Bone Density
• AIDs • Cardiovascular
• Pituitary Malfunction • Decreases Cholesterol
• Transsexual Women • AIDs
• Bone Marrow Stimulation • Burn victims
• Quality of life for women
during Menopause

12. Psychological Reasons
• A person who wants to be like their childhood
Idols (Rambo/Hulk Hogan) the only way to
look like them is by using performance
enhancing supplements.
• “Little Man Complex”- Feeling inadequate
• One who takes them to get strong will
continue to take them because they do not
want to lose strength

13. Competitive Advantage
Performance Enhancing Other performance
Supplements (Illegal) Advantages (Legal)
• A need to be competitive (if • Tiger Woods got Lasik eye surgery
and now sees 20/15
my opponents do it, I have
• Cortisone shots are legal for pain
to do it to compete with and can be more dangerous than
them) illegal performance enhancing
supplements
• Increase performance
• Floyd Landis slept in an altitude
chamber when he won the Tour
de France. It simulates high
altitude and increases red blood
cells, which means more oxygen,
which means more endurance for
long distances

14. Side Effects of Anabolic
Steroids
Males Females
• Acne, hair growth, • Acne, hair growth, deeper
shrinkage of testis, lower voice, menstrual problems,
sperm count, even sterile, enlarge clitoris
Gynecomastia (male boobs) • Some are not reversible
• All can be reversed when after discontinuing use
one goes off the drug.
• Doesn’t make you go bald
but if it runs in the family it
can make you go bald faster.

15. Side Effects (cont.)
• Every single drug has side effects, even
vitamins
• Side effects can vary from person to person
• If a drug is abused then there will be a greater
risk of side effects
• Only high dosages of oral anabolic steroids can
cause liver damage
• No known long term side effect of anabolic
steroids

16. How does one obtain them?
• Illegally-
– Pet store in Mexico- saying it is for your pet
– Online internet sites- cheapest
• Legally- Without medical “need”
– One can go to a chiropractor and get a take home
urine test (tests hormone levels in urine)
– Then the chiropractor analyzes the data and has
another doctor, which you never meet, to write you a
prescription.
– The FDA has never clarified what proper hormone
levels are so it is up to the doctor to interpret.

17. Successful Stories
• One man had AIDs, was down to two T-cells
and weighed 120 lbs. After taking
performance drugs he gained 300 T-cells and
30 pounds in 6 weeks.
• Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, beat
America’s Carl Lewis in the 100 meter sprint in
the 1988 Seoul Korean Olympics. Johnson was
the fastest man in history, however, he tested
positive for steroids and Lewis got the gold.

18. Truth
• Anabolic steroids made it possible for the man
with AIDs to survive.
• Carl Lewis also failed a drug test in America
before he competed in Seoul Korea and it was
covered up.

19. Horror Stories
• Baseball hearings- Taylor Hooton committed
suicide and his father blamed steroids, he spoke
out against steroids at the hearings. He said that
his son quitting the use of steroids cold turkey
had caused him to commit suicide.
• Chris Benoit killed himself and family out of
“Roid Rage”.
• A young high school kid took steroids to get
bigger and stronger. He did, but it cost him his
good looks and lots of acne.

20. Truth
• Taylor Hooton was taking many drugs, other than
steroids, including anti-depressants that are
known to cause suicides.
• Chris was also on a lot of other drugs and there is
no way to scientifically prove that steroids were
the sole cause. “Roid Rage” is very rare and
anabolic steroid use cannot make one psychotic.
• The kids dealer wanted to make more money so
he told him to take 3 times the normal amount so
he could make more money off the kid.

21. My Opinion
• Performance Enhancing Supplements are a
risk/reward trade off. One must know both.
• P.E.S. are the same to me as risking an operation to get
plastic surgery. (vanity)
• One should be able to obtain P.E.S. only with a doctor’s
prescription and without medical reasons. This way
they can be monitored both
(physically/psychologically) and take the safe amount.
• The Olympics and professional sports should continue
the ban on the illegal P.E.S. Maybe even consider
others to ban as well.

22. Future
• More research needs to be done in order to
draw conclusions about long term side effects
of performance enhancing supplements.
• Media should educate the public more and
not spin the truths away from scientific facts.

23. References
• The Port No Group (2010). Images- Stallone. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://theportnoygroup.typepad.com/my_weblog/images/2007/03/16/slygymthumb.jpg
• What The Hell IS (2010). Arnold Bodybuilding Picture. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://whatthehellis.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/arnold-schwarzenegger-bodybuilding-
pic.jpg
• Movie Poster (2010). MPW Poster. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/30/MPW-15240
• Green’s Blog (2010). Young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://blog.greens.org.nz/wp-content/young-arnold-schwarzenegger.jpg
• Pop Stars Plus (2010). Hulk Hogan Picture. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://www.popstarsplus.com/images/HulkHoganPicture.jpg
• World Press (2010). Iron Sheik. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://rebuildingyear.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/the_iron_sheik_-
_hossein_khosrow_vaziri_01.jpg
• Laist (2010). Jackie Robinson. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://laist.com/attachments/tony/jackie_robinson_42.jpg
• World Press (2010). Common Sense Conservative-Bonds Now. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://commonsenseconservative.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/bondsnow.jpg
• Anabolics Mall (2010). Legitimate Medical Uses. Retrieved June
16, 2010, http://www.anabolicsmall.com/roida4a.htm
• Chris Bell (2008) Movie, “Bigger, Stronger, Faster”. BSF Film.