Anabolic Steroids: NIDA for Teens

Off of the cite Facts on Drugs: Anabolic Steroids by NIDA writers, they talk about how steroids affect our world and the people in it. NIDA explains how steroids boost testosterone in the male body and make massive muscle growth. They say sometimes steroids are prescribed for people but thats only if its another kind of steroid or your body NEEDS it to function. NIDA says, "Doctors never describe anabolic steroids to young, healthy people to help them build muscle". They gave some "street names" that people use like: roids, juice, gym candy, or arnolds. People take them by popping pills or injecting hypodermic needles. Some are known to take up to 10 to 100 times more than what would normally be prescribed by a doctor. They said, they did a study on high schoolers who have done steroids before and got back only around 1 to 3 percent of high schoolers have even tried steroids. The last thing the NIDA writers pointed out were the side effects which consisted of baldness, shrinkage of testicles, development of breasts and mood swings.

I was not surprised when NIDA got their numbers back low on kids taking steroids. Steroids aren't the most common problem in the regular high school population. Most kids who want them only want it to perform better at a sport but some just want to look better. I know some people who take a type of steroid because they are smaller than some people and it's prescribed by a doctor. It does seem fair that they can take them and not regular people so they can just try and be normal themselves.


NIDA Writers, "Facts on Drugs". National Institute on Drug Abuse. 4/8/10 .


http://teens.drugabuse.gov/facts/facts_ster2.php