Performance-enhancing steroids could be damaging athletes' health without actually helping them win.
Researchers found the times and distances of athletes did not improve during the "doping era," the University of Adelaide reported. The findings were made through analysis collated sporting records of male and female athletes of 26 sports between the years of 1886 and 2012. They compared results from before and after 1932, when steroids became available, and found no statistically significant difference in athlete performance.
"The effects of doping in modern sports are far and widespread, encompassing not only the athletes and sporting teams involved, but also sponsors and fans," said Aaron Hermann, lead author on the paper. "The average best life records for 'doped' top athletes did not differ significantly from those considered not to have doped. Even assuming that not all cases of doping were discovered during this time, the practice of doping did not improve sporting results as commonly believed."
The researchers said these findings highlight the unnecessary damaging effects of steroid use, and could also indicate that the practice is more widespread than we thought it was.
"The 2000 Olympics gold medal result for the women's 100 [meter] sprint was even poorer than the gold medal obtained in the 1968 Olympics, the first year of doping testing in the Olympics," Hermann said. "This research demonstrates that doping practices are not improving results and in fact, may be harming them -- seemingly indicating that 'natural' human abilities would outperform the potentially doping 'enhanced' athletes -- and that in some sports, doping may be highly prevalent."
The researchers hope these results will help discourage athletes and student athletes from taking these harmful drugs. Although doping may result in small performance improvements, the consequences strongly outweigh the benefits.
"In many sports, there are perceptions that an athlete needs to dope in order to remain competitive and I hope these findings will confront those ill-informed views, and help stamp out doping in sport," Hermann concluded.
