Sports and substance use - Naturalistic observation of athletic drug-use patterns and behavior in professional-caliber bodybuilders

Athletic performance-enhancing drug use is widespread. Awareness in the med ical community lags because various athletic subcultures have not been pene trated by conventional medical literature. This report presents a current a nd comprehensive assessment of drugs used by professional-caliber bodybuild ers to enhance athletic performance. The scale of drug use documented signi ficantly exceeds all previous reports from athletic populations and indicat es that this group is at significant risk for use. Drug-use patterns and be havior encompass multiple domestic, foreign, and veterinary agents to creat e "successful" training programs. The presence of interathlete and interspo rt communication at amateur and professional levels creates a wide applicat ion for this information in athletic settings. Since use may not be limited to the competitive athlete, a heightened awareness will aid practitioners in correlating clinical observations with accurate athletic drug-use inform ation.