Taylor Hooton was an up-and-coming pitcher for Plano West Senior High School. He was popular and cheerful until, his parents say, he stopped using performance-enhancing drugs.

Those who use steroids often have a sense of euphoria and aggression. But when steroid use is discontinued, doctors say users can experience lethargy, loss of confidence, and hopelessness.

"It's a pretty strong case that he was withdrawing from steroids and his suicide was directly related to that," said Dr. Larry W. Gibbons, president and medical director of the Cooper Aerobics Center, a leading preventive-medicine clinic in Dallas. "This is a kid who was well-liked, had a lot good friends, no serious emotional problems. He had a bright future."

Doctors estimate that between 500,000 and one million U.S. high-school students use steroids. In many instances, teens are unaware of the side effects of the drugs, including infertility, atrophied testicles, high blood pressure, liver damage, and prostate cancer.

"I'm worried about kids," said Dr. Donald A. Malone, a psychiatrist at the Cleveland Clinic who conducted a 1995 study that found a link between depression and steroid use. "Elite athletes know the side effects, and they can afford to pay for the real stuff. Kids don't have the knowledge, and they're buying it from some clown selling it at school. Who knows what they're getting?"

To inform students, parents, school administrators, and coaches about the dangers of steroid use, Hooton is conducting seminars and granting news interviews.

"Don't tell me it's not a problem," Hooton, a director of worldwide marketing for Hewlett-Packard, said. "My kid just died."

Although steroids weren't specifically mentioned, Hooton said a junior-varsity baseball coach had suggested to his son to get bigger and stronger to compete.

Hooton and his wife, Gwen, noticed the changes in their son, but thought it was from working hard in the weight room.

"There is a checklist of symptoms, and he was showing almost all of them," said Hooton. "We didn't know any better. We should have."

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