Effects of Steroids--by Cristian

Please read Cristian's essay and leave comments for him. Thanks.

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Cristian Rodriguez
ENW-107-E1
Effects of Steroids

Many athletes want to get better and better over time. As a result, they do whatever might help them to improve their performance. Some of them train hard, but some of them use steroids. Steroids help them to get stronger and to improve their performance. Steroids are also used as medicine by people who suffer from various types of pain and diseases. However, the inappropriate and extreme use of these drugs called steroids causes many side effects, which might ruin one’s life.

Steroids cause several side effects that manifest on the outside of the body. For example, the skin may get rougher because the pores get larger. Also, steroids cause acne or it gets worse for the ones who already had it. Moreover, the extreme use of steroids might cause baldness or at least it speeds up the process for the ones who are going to lose their hair anyway. In addition, steroids are known to cause breast enlargement in men and growth of facial hair in women. However, all these external effects depend on each individual.

Steroids also do internal damage to the body. They cause serious damage including urination of blood and many things that might not look so serious. In addition, steroid use might cause infertility in both men and women. At the beginning, it might seem good because of the increase of the sexual functions. However, it might be just be for a short period of time. When the steroids begin to work in the body, the individual won’t be capable of maintaining an erection, but everything is going to be normal when the individual stops taking steroids. In addition, they directly affect the liver, which might increase the level of suffering and disease in general. Moreover, the cardiovascular system is strongly affected by steroids because of the increase of cholesterol, which can lead to heart attack.

As steroids cause many physiological effects, they also cause many psychological ones. Some of those effects are delusions, depression, and many others. In some cases, these effects can be devastating. For instance, there’s a case of a wrestler, Chris Benoit, who seemed to have everything. He was famous had a lot of money and a good family. However, he was taking steroids. Gradually, he began to have many psychological problems, including depression and anger issues. Unfortunately, he couldn’t handle his rage and one day he killed his wife, son, and then himself. Many people think that the extreme use of steroids was at least fifty percent of the reason why his psychological problems became so severe, ultimately leading to this tragedy.

In conclusion, steroid use might cause many side effects that may definitely ruin one’s life. In my opinion, people should look for information before they decide to take steroids. If they decide to use them, they should do it under the supervision of a professional who can advise them about side effects and the precautions they can and should take. However, some people don’t really care about the possible consequences of steroid use. Others simply think that in order to gain something, there should be pain and suffering. It is this belief that gets so many steroid users into so much trouble.