The amount of drugs in sport is becoming more and more apparent as the level of performance continues to increase. Some sportsmen use drugs to influence the natural processes in muscles that we have already seen.
Steroids are hormones, for example testosterone (natural sex hormone) can be synthesised and used to allow performers to train harder and longer.
You will notice from the diagram that testosterone is comprised of a ring structure, this is common to all steroids. Each ring junction can be either cis or trans (isomerism), but it turns out that all steroids have all trans-junctoins except where rings A and B join which is sometimes cis. This factor makes steroids very stable, which is obviously good news for the synthetic chemist.
The most common way that athletes use steroids however is by consuming molecules such as estradiol that bind to a receptor and trigger signaling pathways called agonists. As these agonists bind to particular androgen receptors it stimulates the expression of genes that enhance the development of lean muscle mass. As this happens these compounds known as anabolic steroids disturb the secretion of testosterone, leading to side effects, affecting secondary sexual characteristics.
Last updated by Andrew Robinson 26th May 2004