By Carol Chmelynski
6/7/05 -- The recent controversy over steroid use by major league baseball players has drawn attention to the growing use of the drug among high school students.
Teenagers turn to anabolic steroids because they offer quick results -- bigger muscles and more strength -- but many aren’t concerned with the harmful side effects. Steroid use has been linked to more than 70 physical and psychological side effects that include severe acne, stunted growth, liver tumors, withered testicles, irregular periods, stroke, cancer, emotional disturbances, and early heart disease, including sudden death.
Legislation has been introduced in about 14 states to curb the use of anabolic steroids.
Bills in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Virginia would require high school athletes to be tested for steroids. Oregon, New York, and Rhode Island would prohibit school employees and coaches from suggesting students use steroids, and a measure proposed in Alaska would list steroids as a controlled substance.
Meanwhile, the California Interscholastic Federation voted May 6 to require parents, players, and school officials to sign contracts promising that athletes won’t use steroids; regulate the dietary supplements coaches can distribute to athletes; and require coaches to earn a certification by 2008 that includes steroids-abuse education.
The new rules take effect this fall. Cost was a factor in the federation’s decision to not require drug testing. The tests can range from $50 to $150.
Drug testing
Florida lawmakers passed a bill April 28 that would create a pilot program to test students in a sport to be selected in the 2006-07 school year by the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA).
The FHSAA oversees some 215,000 teen athletes in 67 counties and already requires that students who test positive for anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs be barred from playing until they are free of any illegal substances.
So far, the only school district in Florida to test for steroids is Polk County, which began testing in January.
Each year, the district plans to test about 600 of its 77,000 students, at a cost of $105 each. The district will use a $63,000 federal grant to help cover the cost, says Audrey Kelley-Fritz, senior manager of prevention, health, and wellness.
A student who tests positive will be evaluated after a first offense and barred from competition after a second.
According to a survey of students conducted last year, about 4 percent of respondents said they had used steroids at least once in the last 30 days, Kelley-Fritz says. A later survey of participants in spring sports found 6 percent had used steroids.
But not one of the 300 students randomly tested for steroids was found to have the drug in their system, she says.
The school board of the Ft. Zumwalt R-2 School District in St. Charles County, Mo., approved a voluntary steroid testing program May 16.
Superintendent Bernard Dubray says the tests will give students another reason to say no to drugs. “The policy is not intended to punish students, but to help them stop using dangerous, illegal substances.”
Under the new program, estimated to cost $20,000 a year, student athletes, cheerleaders, and drill team members will be required to attend at least one drug education session with their parents and coaches.
The district will randomly choose five students each week from among three of its high schools to be tested. The results will be shared only with the student, his or her parents, and the school’s activities coordinator. After a second positive test, the student would be barred from the sport.
Growing use among girls
ýesearchers at the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future project recorded a steady rise in students taking anabolic steroids between 1993 and 2002. “A particular jump in use among the younger teens was seen in 1998, after Mark McGwire hit his home run record and it was revealed that he had been using a steroid precursor,” says Lloyd D. Johnston, principal investigator of the study.
“Since those peak levels, steroid use has fallen in the lower grades and leveled in grade 12,” he says. “Still, based on our 2004 questionnaire, we estimate that some 334,000 teenagers nationwide in grades 8-12 have tried steroids at least once in their lifetime.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, steroid use among teens has more than doubled since 1991, from 2.7 percent of high school students who reported using the drug at least once in 1991, to 6.1 percent in 2003.
Ninth-grade girls show the highest use (7.3 percent), while 6.9 percent of ninth-grade boys have used steroids. From 2001-03, CDC says steroid use increased 36 percent among high school girls and about 15 percent among boys. Ninth-grade girls showed the sharpest increase -- 46 percent.
The growing use of the drug mirrors the increased number of girls competing in sports. Some girls also use steroids to trim body fat and to attain the sculpted look of models, while boys generally use the drug to bulk up and gain a competitive edge in sports.
Steroid abuse is different from other drug abuse because users are not driven by the immediate euphoria that, for example, accompanies cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
Steroid users want to “change their appearance and performance, characteristics of great importance to adolescents,” Volkow says. “Steroids can boost confidence and strength, leading the abuser to overlook the potential serious long-term damage.”
Education urged
Dr. Linn Goldberg, a profession of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, says steroid testing might be appropriate in some districts, but he believes schools should try education first.
“The worst thing you can possibly do is kick a kid off a team if they test positive,” he says.
Working with Dr. Diane Elliot in the early 1990s, Goldberg developed a 10-week steroid prevention program that offers instruction in nutrition and strength training.
That project grew into the ATLAS (Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids) program for boys and the ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives) program for girls. These programs are now in 29 states and Puerto Rico.
First tested on 15 schools in Oregon and Washington state, the program claimed a 50 percent reduction rate in anabolic steroid use. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared ATLAS a model program.
ATLAS works because it is led by students and coaches, not guest lecturers, says Timothy Condin, an associate director at the National Institute on Drug Administration.
“It helps change the culture in the athletic department about what is acceptable,” Condin says. It’s also inexpensive, with a cost of about $4 per student.
While drug testing is a necessary part of curbing steroids, education is more effective, says Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon and co-author of When Winning Costs Too Much: Steroids, Supplements, and Scandal in Today’s Sports.
“Cheating is always going to be a way of life,” Bailes says. “Weakening its impact at the root -- in a child’s development -- is far more effective than trying to catch it when an elite high school, college, or professional athlete has weighed the options and continues to choose a win-at-all costs shortcut to the same success we all seek.”
Experts stress it’s important to convey this message to students early. Dr. Eric Small, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on sports medicine, told the Dallas Morning News that talking about supplements and steroids needs to start as early as the third grade. “If you wait until ninth grade, it’s too late.”