Scientists in the United States have claimed to find two amazing drugs, AICAR and GW1516, which can prove beneficial for people especially sportsmen for exercising for longer durations. The discovery of these drugs has, however, came for criticism from some quarters of sporting fraternity as the drugs may give an ‘unfair’ advantage to sportsmen very much like steroids that have been condemned by sporting confederations and appreciated by sportsmen.

The two drugs have been believed to offer great advantages to users such as building of muscle mass and size, burning of fat, and increase in the level of stamina.

From News-Medical.Net:

Lead researcher Professor Ronald Evans, from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Salk Institute in California, has produced a test which will allow the drugs to be detected in the urine and blood of competitors.

Professor Evans says the drugs could eventually help tackle muscle wasting diseases, or help improve the health benefits of exercise in people at risk of conditions such as diabetes.

The two drugs AICAR and GW1516, appear to have an effect on the master gene PPAR-delta which is involved in the building and regulation of muscle and also has the ability to control the activity of many other genes.

This ability in theory could have a wider effect on the way the body works.

By genetically altering mice to enhance the activity of the gene, led to the development of muscle which was much more likely to burn fat than burn sugar and it also made “marathon mice” who were able to run much further on a treadmill.

The researchers say a drug now needs to be produced which will create similar effects rather than conducting a genetic alteration.

The involved scientists are of the view that both these drugs are capable enough to help sportsmen expecting to deliver dramatic performance on an ongoing basis. However, it would be worthwhile to see the reaction of doping and sporting bodies on discovery of these drugs as they have been already expressing their concerns use of steroids in sports till now.

With the world getting divided between proposed legality of steroids in sports, it is high time that people start getting aware about steroids. Even today, many people feel that steroids are harmful for health but the truth is that steroids are not dangerous for health. It is only the user who makes them advantageous or dangerous. While a qualified medical advice guided usage can prove to be beneficial, an uninformed usage of steroids can lead to health ailments. This is the reason why there needs to a conscience effort to spread information about steroids so that potential users can understand the pros and cons of steroids and how to reap optimum benefits from them.

From Npr.org:

Norman Fost, professor of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, says: “I ask you in the audience to quickly name, in your own minds, a single elite athlete who’s had a stroke or a heart attack while playing sports. It’s hard to come up with one. Anabolic steroids do have undesirable side effects: acne, baldness, voice changes … infertility. But sport itself is far more dangerous, and we don’t prohibit it. The number of deaths from playing professional football and college football are 50 to 100 times higher than even the wild exaggerations about steroids. More people have died playing baseball than have died of steroid use.”

If we have a close look at modern day sporting environments, one can easily conclude that steroids have helped and helping professional sportsmen to think beyond previously self-created mind hurdles. This is the reason why steroids have been able to gain and maintain popularity like never-before in the last few years. And, believe it or not, steroids are here to stay and separating steroids and sports is just not unthinkable.