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Performance enhancing agents (PEAs) are substances used to improve any form of activity performed by humans. These are widely used by athletes and body builders. Being a frequent subject of controversy in the sporting world, the use of performance-enhancing drugs has shown a disturbing growth over the past fifty years. The use of drugs to enhance human performance in sports has occurred at least since the time of the original Olympic Games (from 776 to 393 BC). In 1860s, a group of swimmers in Amsterdam were charged for taking drugs to speed up their races. For the next 80 years, athletes who wanted to cheat focused mostly on stimulants to speed themselves up. A wide range of PEAs are used today in the sports field. They include Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AASs), peptide hormones, growth factors, beta-2 agonists, diuretics, masking agents, stimulants, narcotics and even cannabinoids. Though extensive research is being done on the use of PEAs and doping in the sports industry, throughout the developed world, very few published research is available from the third world countries including Sri Lanka. This preliminary study revealed that a wide variety of PEAs are being inadvertently used without justifiable scientific reason and without a reasonable understanding of how they work and what their adverse effects are, by the gym users in Sri Lanka. It also showed that a significant proportion of them experience side effects directly attributable to the use of PEAs.
