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Lead Stories: Sunday, July 20, 2008

Athletes on Performance- Enhancing Drugs Risk Harming Their Children

Posted November 30th, 2007 at 4:10 PM by Jamal Walker

Section: News & Results, Nutrition, Supplements, Health & Fitness, Drugs In Sports

drug_needle Some people think that we should let athletes take performance- enhancing drugs because they think that these athletes can only harm themselves and do not harm others. We already know that anabolic steroids can cause liver damage, heart attacks and strokes, and that growth hormone causes heart attacks by causing the heart muscle to outgrow its blood supply. Now a two-year study of former East German athletes shows that athletes who take these drugs can harm their children.

In the 1970s and 80s, almost all government sponsored East German athletes were forced to take anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. A study of 69 children of 52 of these athletes showed that seven had birth defects and four
were mentally retarded, an unusually high incidence for a group of this size. More than 25 percent had allergies and 23 percent had
asthma. The women suffered 32 times the normal incidence of miscarriage and stillbirth, 25 percent suffered cancer and 61 percent had therapy for mental disorders. The study was conducted by Dr. Giselher Spitzer at Humbolt University in Germany.
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World record holder’s future depends on fast-approaching hearings

Posted June 2nd, 2007 at 12:39 PM by Courtney Albon

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Drugs In Sports

Gatlin_accepts_ban2 The arbitration hearing for Olympic Gold Medalist and world record holder Justin Gatlin is scheduled for July 30-31 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Based on lab results received in April 2006 at the Kansas Relays, Gatlin tested positive for testosterone or its precursors, Gatlin faces a possible eight year suspension. Such a long suspension could potentially keep him from expanding his career as a sprinter as he will be 32 in 2014-end of the eight year term.
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Gatlin to challenge his eight-year suspension

Posted February 17th, 2007 at 2:00 AM by Richard Quinn

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Drugs In Sports

Olympic champion Justin Gatlin will look to challenge his eight year suspension in an upcoming arbitration hearing.

The USADA suspended Gatlin last year after he tested positive for testosterone and its precursors. Although, testosterone is naturally occurring, Gatlin’s levels were considered well beyond that of an average person and therefore deemed to be from a performance enhancing drug.

Gaitlin has insisted that he never, knowingly used a banned substance and is looking forward to the opportunity to clear his name. The USADA senior managing director and general counsel told Reuters that Gaitlin will be awarded this opportunity, saying:

“When Justin Gatlin accepted a positive test and a doping offence, part of the agreement was that he had the right, if he chose, to challenge only the eight-year suspension”

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Are there drugs for athletes that increase strength and are not banned?

Posted December 14th, 2006 at 2:30 PM by Martha Jones

Section: News & Results, Nutrition, Supplements, Health & Fitness, Drugs In Sports

Some athletes take estrogen blockers and human chorionic gonadotropin (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 2006), which have not been banned by sports authorities such as the Olympic committee.

Estrogen blockers such as Tamoxifen, Arimidex, Aromasin, and Femara are used to treat women with, or at high risk, for breast cancer. Evidently lowering the female hormone, estrogen, may act the same way as raising the male hormone, testosterone, to help athletes recover faster from hard workouts.
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Banned track star Gatlin works out for NFL team

Posted December 3rd, 2006 at 7:00 AM by Jenna Sumara

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Drugs In Sports

Apparently an eight-year track and field ban for a failed drug test isn’t slowing down one of the fastest men in the world. Last Tuesday, the NFL’s Houston Texans worked out Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100-meter gold medal winner. The workout was one of the Texans weekly workouts where they take a look at potential players for upcoming seasons. Although they wouldn’t be willing to sign him for this season, they are looking at him for next season or beyond and could sign him as early as late December of this year. Read the rest of this entry »

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Detection and Use of Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Posted November 19th, 2006 at 7:00 AM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: News & Results, Drugs In Sports

drug needle anabolic steroids designer steroids testosterone epo, erythropoietin sprots running track and field cycling World records in sports are broken by better athletes, better training methods, better nutrition or new drugs. Drugs appear to be the cause of many recent records in sports requiring strength and speed. Many bicycle racers know that some drugs that make them better riders can’t be detected by testing techniques that are available today.

A recent study shows that laboratories have no definitive test to discover athletes who take erythropoietin (EPO), a drug to boost their red blood cell counts (Haematologica, August, 2006). Athletes have found that taking very low doses of EPO daily will raise red blood cell counts, and will not give test results high enough to show that they are taking extra EPO.

The primary limiting factor to how fast a person can ride a bicycle over long distances is the time it takes to move oxygen from the lungs into the muscles. So anything that increases oxygen transport from the lungs into the bloodstream, or carries more oxygen in the bloodstream, or moves oxygen faster from the blood into muscles will make a person a faster bicycle racer. Since more than 95 percent of the oxygen in the bloodstream is carried by hemoglobin in red blood cells, anything that increases the concentration of red blood cells will help a racer ride faster. Read the rest of this entry »

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How does testosterone and/or EPO affect athletes?

Posted November 16th, 2006 at 10:30 AM by Martha Jones

Section: News & Results, Health & Fitness, Drugs In Sports

Floyd Landis cycling tour de france EPO erythropoietin bike bicycle performance-enahcing drugs doping After Tour de France winner Floyd Landis was alleged to have taken testosterone, several physicians were widely quoted in the media stating that taking testosterone for one day cannot improve performance. They are wrong. After multiple Olympic gold medal winning sprinter Marion Jones tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO), many physicians stated that EPO doesn’t help sprinters. They are also wrong. (She was cleared because her second sample tested negative.)

Such lack of knowledge reminds me of the early 1970s, when the East Germans and Russians won just about every sports event that required strength. Many American physicians were widely quoted as saying that synthetic testosterone does not make athletes stronger. The athletes thought that these physicians were misguided because soon after starting to take synthetic male hormones, they could observe spectacular improvements in their own performances. Athletes train by taking a hard workout that damages muscles, feeling sore on the next day, than going easier until the soreness diminishes, and then going hard again. As soon as an athlete starts to take anabolic steroids, he notices that he recovers much faster than before, so he can do more intense training which makes him a better athlete. Read the rest of this entry »

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Trevor Graham indicted in doping scandal; faces up to 15 years in prison

Posted November 9th, 2006 at 2:30 PM by Anuradha Kher

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Drugs In Sports

trevor graham.jpg Track coach Trevor Graham was charged on November 2nd with three counts of making false statements to federal agents in an indictment issued by the grand jury investigating performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports. Coming week, on November 15th he will attend his arraignment in the US District Court. If convicted he faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

Three years ago, Graham anonymously mailed a syringe containing “the clear,” a previously undetectable steroid to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Graham acknowledged mailing the drug. He was quoted in the Associated Press saying: “I was just a coach doing the right thing at the time.” He did not say why he turned in the syringe or how he got the material. Read the rest of this entry »

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