Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports Performance Enhancing Drugs or PED’s have been around in sports for a few millenniums. PED’s are substances that help you perform to the best of your abilities in sports. These substances are always under scrutiny because of how they affect the human body and how they affect sports. PED’s have also been linked to deaths in some sports. In the past twenty years leagues and organizations have began testing athletes for the use of PED’s. Considering that professional sports in America play a major part in society it is important to know about PED’s and how they have impacted society today. There are several types of PED’s and sometimes it is mistaken on what an actual PED is. PED’s are substances or drugs such as HGH (Human Growth Hormone), testosterone injections, and anabolic steroids there are many other types of PED’s (Exploring Topics In). Anabolic Steroids are synthetic hormones (Drug Use In). Steroids or PED’s are chemically manufactured and they can be taken orally or injected. …show more content…
The use of drugs to exchange performance has certainly occurred since the original Olympic games from 776 to 393 BC (Drug Use In). The origin of the word doping is attributed to the Dutch word doop, which is vicious opium juice, the drug choice of Ancient Greeks. From 1940 to 1945 the Nazi party tested steroids on prisoners and Party Leader, Adolf Hitler. Hitler showed side effects of heavy steroid use. In 1954 a Soviet Union weightlifting team doctor reveals to Dr. John Ziegler that he used testosterone injection oh his weightlifters (PED Use In). Dr. Ziegler begins research on a substance that will provide injections without the negative side effects. In 1958 Ciba Pharmaceuticals releases John Ziegler’s anabolic steroid under the name Dianabol. The International Olympic Committee banned anabolic steroids in 1975. The International Olympic Committee forms the World Anti-Doping Agency