Steroids have been an integral part of our world for many decades now, whether in sports, bodybuilding, or any other form of entertainment. Along with the simply stunning history of steroids as a whole, there have been some misconceptions about them as well and this piece will aim to discuss the history and double-check some things that have been talked about when it relates to steroids as a whole. Before we move into both of those topics, let us first just take a very quick look into exactly what steroids are, to give us all some basic knowledge before moving on. Steroids are essentially a form of hormones that will impede the rate of cell division and cell development within a person’s body through the increasing of them. The majority of steroids are both part anabolic and androgenic properties, so after saying all of that and giving you a basic idea of what exactly steroids are, let us now move into the history of this amazing substance.
Depending on who you ask, steroids were created at some point between the thirties and the fifties; they were accidentally created by German scientists. It can be said that the steroids were created accidentally because the German scientists were researching and testing other things when they accidentally created steroids while doing research and such. Right around the late fifties, trials were started all over the globe to see how exactly steroids would work and in what ways they would be effective in human test subjects. In the United States, the Food And Drug Administration would approve steroid usage, but then the seventies arrived, and steroids would take a hit. That can be said because members of the Food & Drug Administration would perform several tests on steroids and then the International Olympic Committee would ban them altogether from the Olympics in the middle of the seventies.
In an interesting moment to consider, despite being banned by the FDA and IOC by the middle of the seventies, steroid sales would continue to increase with each passing year, despite them being considered illegal for the most part. The steroid epidemic would be so bad in the eighties that the IOC would start random drug testing athletes. They would discover that around half of the Olympic athletes were on some form of steroids at the time. The situation would become so bad outside of the Olympics as well by the late eighties that the United States government would start regulating them even further under the federal portion of the laws. Another interesting piece of information to consider is that even though steroids were around for several decades at this point in our story, scientific research had yet to gather all necessary information to lay claim to exactly what they would do to those who actually used them.
Then the middle of the nineties arrived, and a group known as the National Institute Of Health or NIH would finally decide to run a conclusive test to examine what kinds of effects steroids would and would not have. The tests themselves would run for a few years until the late nineties, and what the NIH would discover is that steroids would definitely increase muscle mass in a person who was using them. That would lead to the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency or WADA, which would regulate steroid-free athletes from amateur and professional sports alike. Even with the creation of WADA, the use of steroids would continue to run rampant into the next decade.
The situation would get incredibly worse, that in 2005, a law was created that would clarify steroids as a controlled substance and those who were discovered using them or even dealing them would face truly harsh punishments. It has now been a decade since that law has been put into effect and the steroid issues are still up for debate amongst the government, those in sports, and just the everyday person. No matter what side of the fence you are on when it comes to steroids as a whole, there must be no denying that steroids are a hot topic and will remain a hot topic until the day comes where they no longer exist.