Athletes and the use of HGH
Athletes always have the desire to be the best in their sport. The strongest, fastest, and longest lasting to any activity they do. This is the nature of their competitive spirit to always win. But with all the fights of competition brings on the desire to do whatever it takes to be the best, such as taking drugs like steroids and human growth hormones.
Athletes have been widely accused of taking drugs. Whenever a baseball player beats the homerun record or someone runs the fastest mile ever, there are always speculations of drug use. The International Olympic Committee, the United States and World Anti-Doping Agency along with many professional and college organizations have banned the use of Human Growth hormone comparing it to an anabolic steroid. True athletes have the inherent will to be stronger and better than the next person. HGH is not going to turn an everyday Joe into an Olympic runner but someone that has been training their entire life would easily benefit by using the hormone to get the edge on the competition. Losing a couple pounds without fatiguing themselves and dropping body fat before a big race is an extreme advantage over others.
Many Olympians and other athletes have been stripped of their medals and awards from using drugs to enhance their abilities. A drug have been used since the 1904 Olympics and because of athletes overdosing or becoming sick during the Olympic Games has brought about the testing of every athlete in almost all sports. Floyd Landis, Marion Jones, Ben Johnson, and many others have had their medals removed for using some form of chemical enhancement to surpass their competition. This is becoming very expensive for the sports. Testing is extremely difficult and it has to be random.
Majority of athletes store samples of their urine or blood to give to testers taken prior to use so they aren’t caught “cheating”. Most tests can only check up to ten days of having enhancements in their system. A lot of athletes such as Floyd Landis of the Tour de France use steroid creams. The creams only stay in the stream for 48 hours but Landis swears he didn’t know his masseuse was using it on him. Landis was stripped of his Tour de France title for drug use.
There is no test yet that can detect HGH in the body so athletes tend to use it the most. They think with all the benefits of leaner body and more muscle that aren’t hurting anyone or anything. When in reality, they’re actions of taking drugs are cheapening their lives, hurting the sports reputation and cheating their competition.
In the end whether it’s the guilt they feel from doing the wrong thing such as Olympic runner Marion Jones, or it’s the complete collapse in competition like the group of speed skaters in the a1952 Olympics, athletes will always do what they can to be better than the rest and win. The one problem that they don’t think about it is what’s going to happen in the long run after using all the enhancements. Many athletes from ages 18 to 32 have died in practices, competition, or other events from heart failures. Since HGH is not traceable the deaths have mostly been ruled natural causes but prolonged use of human growth hormones is known to cause heart problems.
