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WORCESTER -- Steroids are everywhere.
They're in the gym, they're in the locker room and they're in the news.
They've cast suspicion on towering achievements in major league baseball, a sport that solemnly guards its venerable history. Babe Ruth's home run record of 60, set in 1927, stood for 34 years until Roger Maris eclipsed it by just one in 1961. His record held for another 37 years until Mark McGwire obliterated it with 70 in 1998.
Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds also joined in, with Bonds jacking 73 in 2001. The once unassailable peak of 61 was topped five times in five years.
What's going on here?
Many people say the answer is simple: Professional sports are saturated with steroids, making modern-day stats suspect.
But more than records are sullied by steroids. Anabolic steroids, the kind used to enhance performance, can blight lives. They pose immediate and long-term health risks to the people who take them, whether they are professional team players or student athletes. Young people are particularly vulnerable, not only because their bodies are still growing but because they may succumb more easily to the lure of the quick fix.
There's a saying about one of the more common kinds of steroids: "Die young, die strong, Dianabol."
If steroids are so bad, why do people use them?
Because they work.
Steroids cut to the chase. They build bigger muscles and stronger bones. Athletes can train more intensively, since their recovery time shrinks as steroids rev up the protein-turnover machinery in the body.
Research shows that some men can increase the amount of weight they bench press from 300 pounds to 450 pounds. Instead of weight training three times a week for 45 minutes, they can lift three times a day, six days a week.
And that can be alluring.
"Weights start to feel lighter, you feel stronger, your sex drive goes up and that makes you more confident, too," said Tom Vigliatura, president of T.Vig's, his 5-year-old sports supplements business.
Mr. Vigliatura, 35, is an award-winning bodybuilder and he looks the part. Trophies fill the shelves in his office, like rows of miniature Arnold Schwarzeneggers. He makes no bones about his use of steroids in the past or his belief that...