Super Drug

Old stuff.

Stories of Actovigen users in cycling were always the same. The athletes were taking so much stuff there's no way to know what was/wasn't working.

My uninformed opinion is I doubt it does much. I could very easily be wrong.

I wish they'd just say the hell with it and allow these athletes to snort TNT and main line DYNO-MITE. Tired of it.

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.

actovegin wrote:

Has anyone else seen this?? Apparently Usain Bolt and Paula Radcliffe are both guilty of taking actovegin. I know it's not illegal by WADA's standards but Jesus Christ...

Link below:

https://academicathletics.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/actovegin-the-unfortunately-legal-performance-enhancing-drug/

Discuss.

Are you Canadian?

"I know it's not illegal"

End of discussion really.

Get Real wrote:

"I know it's not illegal"

End of discussion really.

Actually, that's where the discussion should begin. The brojos and other adti-doping advocates spend most/all of their time whining about people who dare to take/do something on "the prohibited list," as though Moses brought the list down some mountain after conferring with Dick Po... whoops... God.

There's a lot of good (more productive?) discussion to be had over the factors that led to WADA and their list, who benefits from the current rules (if your answer is "clean athletes," that's cute), whether or not the rules are enforceable (are u enforeceable rules good rules?), and why so much that would be considered doping by most people (e.g. altitude tents, actovegin, supplements, 'top-secret' programs [hi Canada!]) isn't.

Not the response you were expecting i would guess.....

It is painfully old news I'm afraid

It's actually not old news - precisely the opposite. We've known forever that all these superstars take it, but the study the blog calls out was published earlier this year (Jan 2016), but it flew under the radar. It was the first piece of evidence to show an enhancement of oxygen transport in human skeletal muscle, thereby moving this drug out of "voodoo" maybe-nonsense to bona fide PED.

My opinion, 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. This and the fact they're probably trying a ton of banned and gray zone stuff and not sure what actually works.

Back in the MLB HR era of the late 90's, Mark McGuire was endorsing and taking an andro supplement, not banned by MLB at the time and touted it as the reason for his home run production. I was working on a study at the time that was published showing the andro stuff did not work. Based on andro study, we believed at the time he was probably also taking steroids....and the truth eventually came out.

This isn't a "supplement" - it's a prescription drug. It has peer-reviewed literature supporting it's role in enhancing energy transport. It's used in Europe, but doesn't have FDA clearance in the United States.

Moreover, though it isn't on WADA's banned list as a specific substance per se (though it used to be on the IOC's banned list), it does violate the WADA code, which bans:

“any growth factor(s) affecting muscle, tendon or ligament protein synthesis/degradation, vascularisation, energy utilisation, regenerative capacity or fibre type switching”

and

“… the potentially unhealthy abuse of certain substances without therapeutic justification based on the mistaken belief they enhance performance is certainly contrary to the spirit of sport regardless of whether the expectation of performance enhancement is realistic…”

Furthermore, WADA bans multiple injections exceeding 50 mL per 6 hour period. The jounalist who wrote the Muller-Wohlfahrt ESPN OTL piece in 2011 watched Healing Hans inject Radcliffe with 20 needles at once:

"Muller-Wohlfahrt used his right hand to deliver 14 injections into her lower back. Another two were directed into the front of her right hip, followed by four into the top of her left foot."

WADA violation, no?

This is starting to sound like Meldonium - old news finally coming to the forefront. Whereas Meldonium has been somewhat established for anti-ischemia, there is evidence (as pointed out) that Actovegin greatly helps with something relatively similar - hypoxia as a result of circulation abnormalities. This and PRP always sounded like it went against the spirit of the sport.

Follow the money

kanny wrote:

This is starting to sound like Meldonium - old news finally coming to the forefront. Whereas Meldonium has been somewhat established for anti-ischemia, there is evidence (as pointed out) that Actovegin greatly helps with something relatively similar - hypoxia as a result of circulation abnormalities. This and PRP always sounded like it went against the spirit of the sport.

The fact that they banned meldonium because athletes were using it for performance enhancement is justification enough to look at actovegin again. Meldonium was shown to have the potential for performance enhancement, and athletes have used it for performance enhancement.

"Activo, Activo-what? Activ-o-something"

I've been saying for a while, that if the benefits of actovegin are from one doctor using one drug, it is not science, and it is not medicine.

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.

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?

In that case the Bro Jos need to post a marketing link so we can all get our hands on some. I knew Paula didn't run 2:15 solely on her cuteness. I know I'd like to crack 15 again for 5k and that seems just the ticket.

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

Apparently Usain Bolt and Paula Radcliffe are both guilty of taking actovegin

Guilty of doing something legal?

That's like saying someone is guilty of using a car to get somewhere faster.

It's legal.