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Essay on Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports
It is important to remember that all drugs, even the most selective, produce side-effects. For patients taking drugs for therapeutic purposes, these side-effects may be deemed acceptable when weighed against the beneficial therapeutic effects of the drug. However, no such counterbalance exists for individuals, such as athletes, taking drugs for nontherapeutic purposes. In this case, side-effects can only be perceived as detrimental to health. Some side-effects to drugs occur at normal, therapeutic dose levels whilst other side-effects are experienced only at higher dose levels.
It should be remembered that, in many instances, athletes are taking drugs in doses far in excess of those required for therapeutic purposes and in so doing increase the risk of experiencing side-effects.Drug toxicity can to a large extent be predictable. The side-effects of drugs are usually well documented as a result of extensive toxicity studies during the development of the drug and from adverse reaction reporting once the drug is on the market. These predictable toxic effects are more pronounced when the drug is taken in overdose. This could occur intentionally (suicide, murder) or accidentally. Accidental overdose may result from children mistaking drugs for sweets; iatrogenic (physician produced) toxicity, resulting from incorrect dosing of patients; patient-induced toxicity when the patient does not comply with the prescribed method of treatment. Accidental toxicity can easily occur with athletes who self-medicate themselves without appreciating the full implications of their actions. The naive philosophy that if one tablet produces a particular desired effect then three tablets must be three times as good frequently prevails in these circumstances.
In addition to predictable toxicity, there are numerous ways in which nonpredictable toxicity can occur following the administration of therapeutic or even sub-therapeutic doses of drugs. An example of this is idiosyncrasy where a drug produces an unusual reaction within an individual.....
