The tragic case of Luke O'Brien May has shone the spotlight on the use of steroids by underage players in Ireland.
The story made the front page of Friday's Irish Independent where the youngster (18), from Grange, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick died last year.
According to the publication, Assistant State Pathologist, Dr. Margaret Bolster, and Dr. Robert Plant, a medic at Cork University Hospital, both indicated that "on the balance of probabilities, Luke developed a swelling of the brain because of his usage of the steroid, Stanozolol."
Commenting on the case on Friday's OTB AM, Eoin Sheahan said: "It just paints this picture of an unbelievably grim nature, of the black market and essentially the desperate, desperate need for more education around these performance enhancing drugs.
"It might be just me and it might be just me saying this but honestly, when you think performance enhancing drugs, and you think of this specific drug, you think Ben Johnson, you think of getting popped (caught) and you think that's the worst that can happen to you - It's clearly not."
"Yeah, well I guess if you look at the history of cycling in particular, the number of athletes that have died prematurely over the last 25 years," added Dave McIntyre, "The most obvious of which is Pantani, and there's very much out there, a lot of evidence that sustained abuse of performance enhancing drugs and steroids, in particular, can lead to difficulties with your heart, with your lungs, with your liver and in this tragic case with this teenager - there was a swelling of the brain that the coroner believes led to his passing.
"You can never have too much education around these things but there definitely have been stories over the years. We've also seen it in professional wrestling - over the last 25/30 years - the amount of guys who have died from heart failure who were in their 40s and often, that has been linked to steroids over the course of their careers."
The full podcast can be heard here:
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
