could be a front wrote:Athletes taking banned PED's sdmit to the use of 'legal' supplements and drugs such as this one as a cover for the banned stuff that really works.
Yup. Tip of the iceberg.
could be a front wrote:Athletes taking banned PED's sdmit to the use of 'legal' supplements and drugs such as this one as a cover for the banned stuff that really works.
Yup. Tip of the iceberg.
Healing Hans strikes again!
Is Hans the acupuncturist / masseur off the ivory coast that Bolt and others go to or is that someone different?
How can you be guilty of taking something legal?
Clearly you are not a Mensa member.
TrackCoach wrote:
longtime letsrunner wrote:It does nothing that oral horseraddish extract and inositol wouldn't do.
Whats shocking is that WADA allows basically injections of this stuff multiple times in a 24 hour period.
Professional elite athletes who have support teams consisting of doctors, nutritionists, etc., would not allow an athlete to take a drug that has no benefit. (why bother!) Btw, there is a big difference between taking a pill once a day versus multiple injections a day.
Case in point, DHEA the popular anti-aging and sexual performance enhancement drug was not a banned when people where taking the OTC pills, but when it was learned that athletes where taking massive quantities in the form of injections, it was banned. As an athlete, you should refuse any type of injection unless it is for an illness and/or you are absolutely certain it is a vitamin.
actovegin is right up there with deer antler spray. Supplement makers trying to create demand for their product.
Just a few random thoughts on the study itself. There was actually some publicity about Actovegin already in January when some websites such as Ergo-log reviewed the Danish study in question. If one actually looks how Ergo-log described the content of the study, one recognizes instantly some serious limitations with the procedure:
Doesn't sound like a study with real life volunteers with a control group and a double blind procedure. Ergo-log also quotes freely some limitations noted by the research team itself:
While there is no reason to dismiss the conclusions altogether, there are always several limitations in the in vitro-setup and it isn't always straightforward that the results can be seen in actual performance with real life subjects. In the Ergo-log -page there are literally dozens of references on various substances (amino acids, spices, fruits, berries etc.) that show a lot promising results in in vitro-studies elevating testosterone levels when leydig cells are exposed to the substances or inhibiting testosterone from converting to estradiol (ie. aromatisation) in test tubes. Still the real life effect of substances has been from none to negligible in most cases.
As far as I know, the results of Actovegin-experiments done with real life people have been disappointing with no elevation in performance, muscle efficiency nor Vo2MAX.
Whoever wrote:
I had a proper LOL at the endof the list of people who use it, though:
Track and Field Current/Former World Record Holders:
Paula Radcliffe (for over two decades)
Usain Bolt (since he was 16)
Kenensia Bekele
Meseret Defar
Patrick Makau
Maurice Greene
Other prominent persons:
Michael Jordan
Christiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo
Andy Murray
Vladimir Klitschko
LUCIANO PAVAROTTI
BONO
Anyone remember the Dr. Anthony Galea scandal a few years back, the doctor who treated Tiger Woods and others, got caught crossing the border with this stuff I think or something similar?
So yeah it's been around. And the people with $ use it.
There has only been one Actovegin experiment conducted in humans to assess its value as a performance enhancer (Lee et. al. 2011).
The study's design was so flawed that it would be impossible to conclude anything from it. It took 8 volunteers and had them do an arm crank test. Not only is that underpowered, it's also a questionable way to assess maximal aerobic capacity (arm cranks have been shown to have significantly different vo2max results than cycling or running).
As for the Actovegin treatment, they injected 40 mL a few hours before the test into the vein. This isn't how it's used; it's something that would be used chronically for a period of time in training and injected intramuscularly. They didn't find an increase in vo2max obviously, but I wouldn't expect someone to increase vo2max by swallowing a capsule containing a little bit of EPO a few hours before a race.
While the study cited in the post is far from perfect, it at least looks at the drug's effect on the mitochondrial level, indicating that it does have an effect (corroborating scores of animal-model research). I wouldn't draw conclusions from that study alone, but add it to decades and decades of athletes and coaches using it, along with demonstrated efficacy in supporting ischemic tissue, the evidence becomes damning.
The horrifying thing is that single pieces of flawed scientific work are cited as dogmatic, conclusive evidence for the ethically-devoid coaches and agents to convince their athletes to use a shady substance and for the corrupt organizations and federations to turn a blind eye and not revisit the issue because they want an excuse not to know.
Parbuster wrote:
How can you be guilty of taking something legal?
Clearly you are not a Mensa member.
Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. Flawed laws (or sports rules) are not the gold standard of fairness and morality. For example, cheating on your spouse is legal - and definitely wrong.
Clearly you are not an ethicist.
Good that someone is starting to do actual studies. It is common to start with studies on the cells to see if there is an effect. If direct application does nothing then it is doubtful that injecting in a muscle or vein will do anything.
Your defense is weak.There has only been a single test with human subjects - one that was severely flawed in scope and procedure. There are loads of in vitro studies that suggest the opposite of what you say... have you even browsed amjmed or oxford journals in the last 5 yrs???
Your defense is weak.There has only been a single test with human subjects - one that was severely flawed in scope and procedure. There are loads of in vitro studies that suggest the opposite of what you say... have you even browsed amjmed or oxford journals in the last 5 yrs???
Clerk wrote:
I'm also going to bring up the fact that the UCI has a no-needle policy.
No reason IAAF couldn't enact that for athletics.
MPCC teams also have a ban on cortisone, which would otherwise be legal OOC. Several times riders have been barred from starting a race due to evidence of Cortisol use.
No reason IAAF couldn't do the same.
Hematocrit limit of 50%.
No reason IAAF couldn't do the same.
IAAF worse than cycling. Is that the reputation it wants?
People use this for injuries...you gonna ban corticosteroid injections? PRP? Nitrate patches? Lidocaine?
I've had injections of some of the above, guess I'm a dirty doper. Better mail back that plastic trophy I won at my local turkey trot and ban myself from the sport for 4 years.
Vegan
adsfadfsf wrote:
People use this for injuries...you gonna ban corticosteroid injections? PRP? Nitrate patches? Lidocaine?
TUEs. Just like in cycling.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
'Auto generated' me arse.
adsfadfsf wrote:
I've had injections of some of the above, guess I'm a dirty doper. Better mail back that plastic trophy I won at my local turkey trot and ban myself from the sport for 4 years.
If you competed in an event where WADA anti-doping regulations applied,
cortisone injections would have required a TUE submitted ahead of time,
because they are indeed banned substances.
Müller-Wohlfahrt is probably the most well-connected doctor in German
sports, the long-time team doctor for Bayern Munich, and the current team
doctor for Germany's national men's soccer team. Because there is no doping in
soccer, I doubt he's losing any sleep over this.
This.WADA has looked at Actovegin extensively, and basically compares it to iron.It was banned for a short time, by the IOC, for the simple reason that many athletes were found taking it with a wrong motivation. I guess they decided that they couldn't ban a drug based on a wives tale.(Meldonium sounds like it is banned for the same reason, without a clear robust finding that it is either dangerous, or performance enhancing.)
Get Real wrote:
"I know it's not illegal"
End of discussion really.
[quote]Clerk wrote:
Hematocrit limit of 50%.
My gosh no!! Back in Oct.2015 I went for some blood tests as I had been unwell of late, and I have to watch a few things as my father has cancer. It came back as a haemoglobin of 162 (or 16.2 in the US I think) and a hematocrit 48.5% and I hadn't trained much over the previous two months (actually I hadn't competed in ten years but I was trying to get fit again). This stuck in my mind until I found that John Walker's haemoglobin was 163 in the mid-1970s. So it dawned on me that I had trained for the wrong events (400/800m) for all those years. Anyway, I went back to my Doctor's about a month ago to see if they had any records of my past blood values, and sure enough over the past ten years (when I wasn't competing and pathetically pretending to be Daniel Craig) I had haemoglobin between 162-172 and hematocrit 48-50% and I was unfit!! So in short, people can have high hematocrit levels but are at the same time totally rubbish!!
But everything else Clerk said is correct.