Performance Enhancers

A Little Boost

Sports enhancers, which include everything from steroids to hormones to over-the-counter supplements, can improve athletic performance and help muscles work more efficiently. Prohormone supplements are the most hyped of all sports enhancers. Prohormones became very popular in 1998, after professional baseball player Mark McGuire said that he had used androstendione (andro) as a performance enhancer. Supporters understand that to add lean muscle mass while minimizing fat gains, the educated and safe use of pro-hormones can be highly effective, because there have been no studies to prove these prohormones are the direct cause of any serious negative consequences.

Prohormones were originally marketed to bodybuilders and athletes under extreme physical workloads in order to provide a safe and legal alternative to anabolic steroids, which are considered a controlled substance and have the potential for harmful effects if abused. These types of athletes take prohormones to aid in recuperation from their intense training regiment and to aid in the development of the muscle. Endurance athletes and competition body builders often have lower levels of testosterone due to such intense training; therefore they have found that prohormones are very effective at raising testosterone for better results. Though prohormones have been able to provide similar results as anabolic steroids, they do not have the ability to increase testosterone to a range much beyond the natural limits of the body. Prohormones are not a recreational supplement and should only be taken by those who are dedicated to a strict diet and stringent exercise program. Like all supplements, the results that are attained while using prohormones will be highly dependent on a balanced weight gain diet and a weight training program. If these guidelines are not followed, the hormones will not be able to assist the user to reach their maximum potential.

Critics of pro-hormones will argue that the people taking them are playing a dangerous game, due to the lack of research in the long term effects of hormone use. Physicians at the University of Michigan Health System say there is no telling what long-term effects these powders and pills can cause. "Many of these [substances] have not been studied adequately. We don't have long-term studies on what they do to the body," explains Edward Wojtys, M.D., director of the U-M Health System's MedSport. Athletes taking steroids or growth hormones are at a greater risk. "Growth hormone is found in your body in limited amounts and [disrupting] that delicate balance is not a good idea. There are legitimate uses of growth hormone, but the potential side effects are concerning, therefore monitoring by a physician is [imperative]," says Wojtys. Prohormones have been suggested to have two primary side effects that have critics in an uproar. The first is