Sport, drugs and health promotion: Pharmacological and epidemiological aspects

Abstract

Sport activity, must be directed to the promotion of individual and collective health. Thus, there is no doubt that drugs and pharmacological nutriment have been used by sportsmen and women to improve his physical performance. Doping is defined as "use of substances or adoption of medical practices not justified by pathological conditions, aimed at improving competitive performance". It occurs not only in professional sport, but also affects amateur athletes. The effects of the abuse of add-on substances or the intake of substances that alter the outcome of the competition are in the educational interest of the school and it is a problem concerning not only sports ethics, but also public health. Over time, doping has shown a great ability to discover and always use new substances and appropriated the new scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, new discoveries for the human health are been used in distorted way by the athletes. In fact, the athletes may be able to use gene therapy to re-engineer their bodies for better performances. Drugs dependence depends on several factors: The socio-environmental context of the subject and what effects have the substance in the body. The purpose of the study was to reviewed the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport in relating to the protection of the healh of athletes. We focus our analysis on pharmacological and epidemiological issue.