Why Do Athletes Use Anabolic Steroid?

Since the conception of the Olympic games in ancient Greece, athletes have been participating in competitive sporting events to prove physical supremacy and acquire the honor and societal hierarchy that could be earned by the victors. In this infantile-era of athletic competition, the primary motivation for these athletes was simply to earn the coveted gold medal and obtain social prestige. However, in today’s hypercompetitive societal environment, a generic slab of gold is not a sufficient incentive to motivate world-class athletes. Immense financial compensation has driven participants in these games to push the limits and bend the rules to the point of breaking in order to gain the greatest advantage over their opponents. In the modern sporting era, the most accessible way to gain this advantage is by supplementing training with anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids, properly called anabolic-androgenic steroids, are synthetic derivatives of the male sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone stimulates two primary effects on the body, androgenic

In partial synthesis, compounds are created by using large quantities of naturally available resources. This process is both inefficient and time consuming, and it therefore not the most preferable means of developing a compound. Nonetheless, early pioneering German scientists were able to isolate cortisone from yams using partial synthesis (Slater, 2000). The progression from partial to total synthesis was the clear turning point in the development of modern steroids. While partial synthesis uses bulky and inefficient means to create a compound, total synthesis using a systematic approach to accurately and efficiently create the desired compound. As opposed to creating a smaller molecule out of a large one, total synthesis creates a large molecule out of precisely ordered and reacted smaller molecules (Slater,