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Hey there! Welcome to Life Noggin.
大家好！欢迎来到脑洞大开的生命奇想。
Would you take a performance-enhancing drug that could help you become an Olympic champion? What if that drug had some serious negative side effects?
你会服用一种能帮助你成为奥运冠军的兴奋剂吗？如果这种药物有严重的副作用怎么办？
These drugs are banned in sports, but that doesn't stop some athletes from taking them. So what do they do and how do they work?
这些药物在运动中是被禁止的，但这也不能阻止一些运动员服用这些药物。那么他们是怎么做的，有什么作用呢?
Let's start off with the most famous of these drugs: anabolic steroids.
让我们从最著名的药物开始:合成代谢类固醇。
When these are taken, the body breaks them down into smaller molecules that can enter cells and bind to a structure called an androgen receptor.
服用这种药物，身体将它们分解成更小的分子，这些小分子可以进入细胞，并与一种叫做雄激素受体的结构结合。
Normally, testosterone binds to this, but anabolic steroids can too. And from here, the real magic begins.正常情况下，睾酮会与此结合，但合成类固醇也可以。自此，真正的魔幻过程开始了。
See, once the androgen receptor is activated, your body starts to produce more proteins during the process of anabolism.
看，一旦雄激素受体被激活，你的身体开始在合成代谢过程中产生更多的蛋白质。
The cells in your skeletal muscles start to replicate, and this means that your muscles will start to grow and you'll become stronger.
你的骨骼肌中的细胞开始复制，这意味着你的肌肉会开始生长，你会变得更强壮。
In fact, in men, exercise and steroids could lead to a 38% increase in strength, and potentially even more for women.
在男性体内，运动和类固醇会使力量增加38%，对女性的影响可能更大。
And not only that, but anabolic steroids can also help athletes train harder and recover faster by shortening catabolism -- the process in which proteins are broken down into amino acids.
不仅如此，合成代谢类固醇还可以通过缩短分解代谢的过程来帮助运动员更努力地训练，更快地恢复，这个过程是蛋白质分解成氨基酸的过程。
But, of course, not all the effects of anabolic steroids are positive. It can cause acne, high blood pressure, and male-pattern baldness in both men and women.
当然，合成类固醇的影响并不都是积极的。它会导致痤疮、高血压和男性秃顶，男性女性都会有。
They can cause men's testicles to shrink, and decrease sperm count, and increase your risk for prostate cancer.
它们会导致男性睾丸萎缩，减少精子数，增加患前列腺癌的风险。
And women using these steroids can develop facial hair, a deepened voice, and their periods may change or even completely stop.
使用这些类固醇的女性脸上可能长出毛发，声音变低沉，月经可能会改变甚至完全停止。
So, seriously, don't use these. But what if an athlete isn't really concerned with muscle strength, but rather wants to improve their endurance?
所以，说真的，别用这些。但是，如果一个运动员并不关心肌肉力量，而是想要提高他们的耐力呢?
This is where blood doping comes in handy, but again, this is a bad move.
血液兴奋剂要粉墨登场了，但这又是一个糟糕的举动。
So bad, in fact, that Lance Armstrong was stripped of all seven of his Tour de France victories and was banned from the sport for life.
非常糟糕。兰斯·阿姆斯特朗（Lance Armstrong）就因此被取消了七次环法自行车赛的胜利，并被终身禁赛。
The goal of blood doping is to increase the amount of the oxygen-carrying red blood cells in the blood.
血液兴奋剂的目标是增加血液中携带氧气的红细胞的数量。
And this is usually done with either blood transfusions, using your own blood, or by injecting yourself with erythropoietin, a molecule that stimulates the production of more red blood cells.
这通常是通过输血，使用自己的血液，或者通过注射促红细胞生成素来完成的，这种分子可以刺激更多红细胞的产生。
And the basic idea is that the more oxygen that can get to your body's muscles, the more endurance you will have.
基本原理是，进入你肌肉的氧气越多，你的耐力就会越强。
So does it work? Well, in one study, blood doping increased an athlete's endurance by 34%, and in another, an athlete was able to run 8 kilometers on a treadmill 44 seconds faster than before.
所以这管用吗？在一项研究中，血液兴奋剂使运动员的耐力提高了34%，而在另一项研究中，一名运动员在跑步机上跑了8公里，比以前快了44秒。
That might not sound like a lot, but when these athletes are competing with the best of the best, every second counts.
这听起来可能没什么用，但参加比赛的运动员都是优中选优的，每一秒都很重要。
Now, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Other performance-enhancing drugs include human growth hormone, which helps increase athletes' sprinting capacity by up to 4% and increases muscle growth as well.
这些只是冰山一角。其他人类生长激素之类的提高成绩的药物，有助于提高运动员的爆发力，最多可达4%，还能促进肌肉的增长。
But trust me when I say that, if you are an athlete, it's probably better to just train the old-fashioned way -- with a lot of hard work and sweat.
但请相信我，如果你是一名运动员，最好用老式的方式训练——用大量的努力和汗水。
Work it, baby. Excluding any of the negative health effects, using these drugs means that you're cheating, and in the professional world, that definitely shouldn't be not taken lightly.
开始吧，宝贝。抛开对身体的负面影响不谈，使用这些药物意味着你在作弊，在专业领域，这绝对应该引起重视。
Do you think the Olympics should allow doping? Will it push the human limit forward? Our good friend Vanessa from BrainCraft discusses it here.
你认为奥运会应该允许服用兴奋剂吗？它会推动人类挑战新的极限吗？心拓的朋友凡妮莎讨论了这个问题。
Between one to three percent of elite athletes test positive for the presence of at least one banned substance.
百分之一到三的精英运动员体内，至少能检测出一种违禁物质。
As always, I'm Blocko and this has been Life Noggin. Don't forget to keep on thinking!
我是宝高，这里是脑洞大开的生命奇想。思考不要停！
