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Post subject: Give drugs a sporting chance
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Though this might start the ball rolling?
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For a truly level playing field, why don't we let athletes take as many drugs as they want? It would be fairer than the present system, argues Michael Rennie
Thursday August 5, 2004
The Guardian
Drugs in sport is hot news just now, with reports focusing on how to stop the cheats. But what about an anarchist approach, letting athletes take anything they want?
Many athletes are contemptuous of the regulatory system. How can they have confidence in it when it allows a couple of espressos delivering milligrams of caffeine which do as much performance-wise as doses above the legal limit? Or which allows amounts of creatine (5-10g a day) otherwise only obtainable from amounts of meat that would daunt Morgan Spurlock, the hero of Super Size Me.
A ruling that only natural substances, in "normal" amounts, should be ingested seems hypocritical to some aspirant champions, the products of the age of individualism.
The situation is worsened when a substance, such as growth hormone, is banned on the grounds that it allows cheats to build muscle mass but scientific research shows it doesn't. Such bans actually encourage use, as when androstendione was proscribed after baseball player Mark McGuire claimed it helped him to be the first to hit 60 home runs a season. In fact, whatever McGuire did to re-engineer himself, it wasn't with androstendione, which is proven to be worthless in boosting muscle. Nevertheless, many people thought: "It's banned - it must work". Internet snake oil merchants made millions. There may sometimes be medical reasons for banning drugs but this should be the authorities' pitch, rather than morality and fairness.
The media's attention is focused on anabolic steroids, tweaked versions of testosterone (which does enhance muscle mass) and genetically engineered human erythropoietin (EPO), the hormone that stimulates red blood cell production. There are horrifying side-effects from clumsy use of these substances: the Norwegian Sports Federation has tried to frighten athletes with posters of men with breasts and shrunken testicles, and women with chest hair - and it has been said that dehydrated cyclists have already died because their hearts failed to pump overly thickened blood. Will the horror stories deter athletes looking for minuscule improvements? A few milliseconds or a centimetre could be the difference between being an also-ran or a gold medal champion with a sponsorship deal and a secure retirement.
Is there room for drug-fuelled improvement in human performance? When biometricians examine running world records, they find no indication of improvements flattening out and physiologists cannot predict the onset of a plateau soon. So, improvement is possible and perhaps more likely with better pharmacology - especially with adenovirus-delivered engineered genes targeted to muscle).
However, it is my guess that if we allowed rampant drug use, the improvements would be rather small, although the spread among performers might be narrowed. World-class champions have effectively been screened out from the general population, often as a result of a genetic predisposition which already gives them a major advantage - look at the size of Ian Thrope's feet. Eero M#228;ntyranta, the Finnish cross-country skiing double gold-medallist, had an in-built enhanced ability to respond to his own erythropoietin.
However, the value might be greater for less perfect athletes. Say four months of exercise and steroids could increase leg muscle mass by 250g: this seems trivial in a 80kg sprinter with 2kg of leg muscle since it is a weight increase of only 1.2%, and the biomechanical structure of the muscles would translate that to a power boost of around 0.6%. But even a net improvement of 0.25%, could translate into one to two hundredths of a second over 100m - promoting silver to gold? Sprint rowers and cyclists would benefit most because they don't support their own weight.
However, I suspect that blood doping, natural endowment and hypoxic training tents have already brought many endurance athletes near the red line for viable blood viscosity, so unfettered EPO would hardly improve current performances, except over days in cycling tours. The performance-enhancing drugs which would possibly have the most effect would be those modulating the activities of the brain to increase focus, and possibly to tolerate pain and raised body temperature. Who knows what science will deliver next?
Personally I like a competition to be fair. But that logic would lead to the same shoes, sharkskin swimsuits and carbon vaulting poles for all. The equipment makers who sponsor athletics won't go for that. So we're stuck with the present illogical and morally suspect system.
· Michael Rennie is professor of clinical physiology, University of Nottingham
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/lastword/story/0,13228,1275992,00.html |
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