Many people have had their lives ruined by the use of illegal steroids, yet
            
             the desired effects are so overwhelming that people tend to overlook the
            
             consequences. Steroid users believe taking anabolic steroids will enhance their
            
             performance, strength, size,etc. They regard the use of them as legitimate as any
            
             other aspect of training.
            
             To begin with, the term "anabolic " means "to build tissue," therefore
            
             anabolic steroids tend to increase constructive metabolic pathways within the
            
             body. Also, anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of the natural male
            
             sex hormone, testosterone.
            
             Testosterone was the first steroid developed, a natural occuring hormone in
            
             many plants and animals. The first clinical use of testosterone occured in 1958
            
             when physicians injected it into underweight and ill patients to simualte weight
            
             gain. The first reported use of steroids in a non-medical setting occured during
            
             World War II. Steroids were adminstered by Nazi doctors into German soldiers to
            
             enhance their aggressiveness. The Soviet Union noted the Nazis' use of the drug
            
             and recognized that enhanced aggressiveness, increasing in strength, and size
            
             could be desirable in athletic competition. The Soviets experimented with steroids
            
             in the early 1950's and it is believed that they were used in the 1952 Olympic
            
             games.
            
             The introduction of steroids into the United States is often attributed to the
            
             late Dr. John Ziegler, the team physician for the United States weightlifting team
            
             at the last Vienna World Power lifting championships. A Soviet physician told
            
             Ziegler that some of the members fo the Soviet team were using testosterone as an
            
             aid to enhance their strength. Ziegler was impressed with the results and began
            
             conducting some studies on American lifters. The results were the development
            
             and introduction of the steroid Dianobol, an anabolic stero...