There are two sides of this argument, one that argues that steroids will affect brain damage in football players and the other one which claims that it won’t, no matter the amount of steroids that are used. These arguments have come up in the background of tens of former and current NFL players suing the NFL for brain damage they experienced during their time in the sport. They argue that the repeated concussions that are caused by the head butting and roughness of the game is what has caused some of them to experience the brain damage after the game. Most of them cannot get gainful employment after they have retired from the NFL and even worse-some of them have lost their lives while playing the game. The NFL argues that since most of these players have used steroids in their time in the game, they have steroids to blame for their predicaments and this has nothing at all to do with the nature of the game. In the course of these arguments, the NFL has gone ahead and commissioned a research into this matter. This was done way back in 1994 and the results were presented in 2003, which concluded that the concussions that one gets from head butting in the game of American football (no matter how many of them) will not cause any brain damage. It does not make sense to many former players and the professionalism of the researchers who made this conclusion has been put to question. It seems to them that they were tailoring the results in favor of the NFL which does not want to take any responsibility for the brain-damaged former players.
Medical experts have proved otherwise and beg to differ with the research and mention that even within the safety of a helmet; one can get enough concussions to get brain damaged. The chances of this happening are not increased by the use of steroids. The chances of getting brain damaged from playing American football are higher than in any other sport regardless of the safety helmet.
A concussion is caused mainly by head butting when the head is accelerates and stops. This causes memory loss, nausea and in extremes causes unconsciousness. When this happens over and over again, the chances of brain damage is high. More than 60% of players in the NFL have suffered from concussions. Even while they are living normal lives outside the NFL, the effects of their concussions may prevent them from achieving 100% use of their brains. Biopsies on former NFL players will most likely reveal some level of brain damage compared to normal healthy people outside the NFL. They are more likely to be depressed and suffer memory loss than players who played other games.
