As long as there have been sports there have been athletes in search
of an advantage and of all of the ways to get a leg up these days professionals
often turn
to performance-enhancing drugs. You hear about them in just about every sport. In
the U.S. some of the best baseball players of all time have been accused of using PEDs.
American football players are regularly suspended for failing drug tests.
And of course Lance Armstrong famously, finally came clean about blood doping in
2012
vacating his seven Tour de France victories in the process. And then
there's the whole deer antler spray thing.
There's no shortage of ways athletes tried to enhance their performance. Some
of them work
but at high cost to their health, their wealth and others
just don't work at all. So which are which and how do they work and
not work? Give me a few minutes and I'll give you a few lessons in the science of why
cheaters never win.
We refer to them as drugs but most performance enhancers are really just
versions of the chemicals that you already have in your body.
These are the compounds that your body uses to build and heal itself and keep
itself healthy.
But by ramping up the levels that these compounds in the hopes of getting more
out of your body
you could end up putting yourself in a world of hurt. HGH or human growth
hormone is a good place to start. Even though we all have it
a lot of people have no idea what it is. Your body produces HGH from the
pituitary gland at the base of your brain.
It stimulates growth and cell development and works with another
hormone called
insulin-like growth factor-1 also known as IGF1.
HGH is converted into IGF1 in the liver and it has several effects
throughout the body including increasing bone and muscle growth. The natural
production of HGH peaks during teenage years, starts to steadily decreased about
the time you hit 30
and declines through the rest of your life. Growth hormone does help regulate
metabolism in adults but its main purpose is really to spur growth during
childhood. Since 1985 an injectable form of HGH has been produced synthetically and
the US Food and Drug Administration approved it to treat children with growth
issues,
genetic disorders, and kidney problems. For adults HGH might be prescribed for
conditions like bone loss or high cholesterol or very rare pituitary
tumors.
Despite its high cost; a month supply HGH can cost up to five thousand dollars.
Human growth hormone has become popular among athletes looking for an edge.
A big reason for this is that it is really hard to detect since everyone's
body produces it. Also HGH starts to break down within 30 minutes
injection so even the best test can only detect it like through abnormally high
levels of certain
antibodies in the blood within 12 to 24 hours. But here's the thing.
For all the athletes and dozens of sports who take HGH there's actually
very little evidence that it provides
any performance enhancement. HGH may stimulate muscle and bone growth but
whether that translates into increased power strength or endurance is unclear.
Researchers in California recently conducted a review of 44 studies of
growth hormone in athletes.
more than 300 volunteers and all these studies combined received injections
of growth hormone for an average of twenty days
similar to a drug cycle that an elite athlete might use. While those who
receive the HGH instead of the placebo did increase their lean body mass by
over two kilograms, there was no measurable increase in either their
strength or their exercise capacity.
There's been all of one study that reported a positive effect of growth
hormone on athletic performance.
At the University of Queensland in Australia scientist in 2010 study 103
recreational athletes and found that while those taking HGH showed no
improvement in strength or general fitness,
their sprinting times on a bicycle improved by 4%. That's all.
Not a huge difference but in a competitive event 4% could
represent the difference between winning the gold and finishing last. What several
other studies did find and what anti-doping agencies have discovered is
that the performance does
improve when HGH is used with testosterone and you know the call
derivatives of the hormone testosterone?
If you said anabolic steroid then you win a gold medal of your own.
We've talked about steroids before but it's kind of impossible to talk about performance
enhancers without touching on them again. Steroids are a kinda lipid or fat molecule
your body makes two very different types. One can you might be familiar with are
corticosteroids.
Their hormone produced by your adrenal glands down there on your kidneys
and they're handy at things like immune function, stress response, and controlling
inflammation.
You may have been prescribed medications that are synthetic versions these
steroids to treat
joint injuries or an auto-immune disease or just a really bad poison ivy rash
which is why I took it. The other kind of steroids are
androgenic anabolic steroids. the main one of these is testosterone which as
you know produces male sex characteristics.
But the steroids also include compounds that stimulate the synthesis of proteins
and eventually
new muscle fibers. This process is called anabolism and steroids that drive it
are anabolic steroids. When synthetic versions are these bad boys are used
illegally by athletes actually abused might be the better term here
the combination of steroids and exercise can increase a man's strength by
more than 38 percent
and its at least that high for women. Anabolic steroids can be freakishly
efficient especially when the user take more than one.
Doping athletes generally take steroids in cycles lasting between one and three
months when strength training in the offseason
this is also when they're less likely to get tested. When injected or swallowed
these steroids travel to muscle tissue where they attached to receptors on the
membranes have muscle cells. The receptors deliver the steroid hormones to the
nucleus of the cells
where they stimulate anabolism a synthesis of proteins. But anabolic steroids
also carry with them some crazy side effects. Not only do raised testosterone
levels often lead to increased aggression and sex drive but they can
also strangely enough
lead to shrinking testicles, impotence, and heart damage. In women steroids can
cause facial hair growth,
acne, liver damage, breast reduction, and changes to or total stopping of the
menstrual cycle.
Now that you are wondering what I can assure you that this body is completely
steroid free. I mean
do I have to list the side effect again? Don't do that. Also if you're more
into aerobic activities especially competitive bicycle racing can I suggest
that you not partake in blood doping?
Bicyclists and other endurance athletes will often use anabolic steroids but
blood doping is becoming more and more common in large part
because it's harder to detect. This kind of doping generally works in one of two
ways. Either through direct blood transfusions in many cases athletes use
their own blood,
or through injections a synthetic form other through erythropoietin or EPO
a hormone that controls the body's production of red blood cells in both
cases the goal is the same to increase the number red blood cells in the body
to increase physical stamina.
Red blood cells use a protein called hemoglobin to bind with oxygen and
delivered throughout your body.
Since your body uses up to 20 times more oxygen during strenuous exercise then
while resting
if you can raise your red blood cell count by having more blood or with EPO
your tissues can keep getting the oxygen. they need and you can keep cycling or
whatever for a lot longer. And before you know it you've won the world's most
famous bicycle race
by cheating. The dangerous world of PEDs is of course not limited to HGH steroids
and blood doping.
The longer you look the stranger the stories you will hear of athletes
attempting to get an edge.
This includes baseball player Manny Ramirez who in 2009 was suspended for 50
games after testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin.
A hormone that women produce during pregnancy.
Turns out it also boost testosterone levels in men and can increase sperm
production. Ironically many steroid users take HCG after developing fertility
PEDs also aren't limited to sports where the competitors aim to be
stronger or faster. In 2008
a member the North Korean Olympic team was stripped of two medals after testing
positive for propranolol. Propranolol
is a drug used to treat hypertension and prevent trembling.
The sport in question, shooting. Similar PED use is also a problem in the
archery World where shaky hands can lead to poor performance. And then there's
deer antler spray. A PED that you probably didn't know existed until 2012.
That's when NFL player Ray Lewis admitted to using the stuff in the hopes
of speeding his recovery after tearing a bicep. The velvety tissue on young
deer antlers contains high levels of growth hormone IGF1 that I mentioned
earlier
this is partly what makes antlers grow so quickly some companies claim that
they can extract this hormone from the tissue and then put it in a spray that
can be administered
under the tongue. You will no doubt be shocked to hear that there's no evidence
that IGF1 of one can be successfully delivered in a pill or spray form even
if the hormone comes from the antlers and some super deer in New Zealand
and yet deer antler spray has fast become one of the more popular
supplements on the market. So here is my advice to all the athletes out there
if the choice is between injecting yourself with synthetic testosterone that makes
you sterile and unable to have sex
changing the amount of blood you have in your body or buying some crazy
concoctions supposedly made from a deer's head
and putting it under your tongue I recommend choosing none of the above.
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