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The administration of various substances in an attempt to enhance physical performance predates the ancient Greek Olympiads.1 Throughout history, athletes have used a variety of drugs as ergogenic aids including alcohol, cocaine, ether, and strychnine.2 Currently there are over 100 substances banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) including over 17 anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) and related compounds.
The goals of the individuals who use AAS are dependent upon the activity in which they participate. Body builders desire more lean mass and less body fat. Weight lifters, both power and Olympic, desire to lift the maximum amount of weight possible. Field athletes want to put the shot or throw the hammer, discus, or javelin farther than the competition, past or present. Swimmers and runners hope to be able to perform their continuous, high-intensity, long duration workouts without physical breakdown. Football players want to increase their lean body mass and strength so that they can be successful at the high school, college, or professional level. Another group of users of AAS simply want to look good, which currently means big and muscular.
HISTORY
AAS are synthetic derivatives of the male sex hormone testosterone. By 1935, testosterone had been isolated, chemically characterized, and the nature of its anabolic effect had been elucidated.3
in 1939, Boje suggested that sex hormones, based on their physiologic actions, might enhance physical performance.2 By 1944, data were available from studies of both animals and man to support this notion.3 Boje was also the first to forewarn athletes of the potential health effects of anabolic steroids when he stated, ". . . their use should definitely be avoided, since it may involve dangers the extent of which cannot be entirely gauged."2
Several prominent older athletes have indicated that various forms of testosterone were being used by a few body builders in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s.3 The initiation of systematic use of AAS in sports has been attributed to reports of their use by successful Soviet weightlifting teams in the early 1950s. In 1954, at the world weightlifting championships in Vienna, Dr. John Ziegler, the US team physician, reportedly was told by his Soviet counterpart that the Soviets were taking testosterone.4 Ziegler returned to the United States and experimented...