Sports and Performance Enhancing Drugs (Doping)

[prasen9]

Murder can also not be eliminated.

[Kumar]

Murder can also not be eliminated.

I am not sure , it is apt comparison. I am wondering if robbery or corruption is more appropriate. This is akin to robbing, but happens on a scale much more frequent than robbery. Corruption where both giver and receiver commit a crime, is very prevalent and majority of the population participates. Or someone cheating on the taxes. Making all of this legal has potentially huge adverse impact on society

Does making doping in sports legal has a similar impact on society that any of the above acts? Its closest comp is is probably self harm and that is still a crime in some countries.

Further the line between supplements and doping seems to be blurred as well.

Just from economic perspective, making doping legal would probably result in loss of jobs however small it may be. Could it reduce sports participation and potentially increase doping at school level competitions? How much fans would a sport lose if doping is made legal? Personally, i think sports would lose its charm, but i can see why one would advocate making doping in sports legal

[Mugundan]

^^Mugu, I was referring to India in my post. My position on doping is clear in this forum and I know I am alone in my thinking.

Understood. My point was if in India (elsewhere also perhaps but I don't have proof), we say "oh doping is there all over the world" and try to condone it, that would be bad. That's what the usual refrain is. Once you start arguing, the stress would no longer be on "everywhere around", but "our elite athletes do not dope". Why? "Because they get tested regularly in the camps".
To some extent this is true, but there have been exceptions and there continue to be exceptions.
NADA has to target-test even as it struggles to cope with an unwieldy Registered Testing Pool in athletics that contains around 75 athletes.
There should be no leniency just because someone is a medal prospect or a small batch of athletes are being prepared for a big championships.
My reference to Japan was simply to show, if the authorities want they can control the situation to a great extent. Or else, athletes themselves have to take a stand "If I have to win I compete clean, not otherwise"".
As on this day, Japan has 27 athletes in the AIU RTP which would mean their RTP athletes at least are getting tested. India at the moment has six AIU RTP athletes, as mentioned elsewhere. Kenya has 146 athletes in AIU RTP! Staggering!

[Mugundan]

https://m.timesofindia.com/sports/more- ... 298506.cms
Now, in para athletics. A gold winner in Para Asiad has tested positive.

[Kumar]

A very old article that Athitee may agree with.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/38/6/666

Some of his ideas are interesting. He wants to level set the playing field by tying the participation to levels of naturally occurring parameters. Essentially some one can use drugs to bring up his parameters to same level as someone that has it naturally as long as that level is considered safe. So i don’t care how u reached that level, but u cannot participate if it goes above that level either naturally or artificially. Athletics is already doing that to female athletes by setting a limit on their testosterone level.

[Atithee]

Yes, Kumar. I appreciate your sharing this article. I consider someone having access to superior diet no different than taking safe level of PEDs. Ditto for training facilities and equipment. You can’t ever level the playing field. My only radical disagreement was letting the athletes decide however much they want to harm their bodies in pursuit of fame and money, but reading this article makes me appreciate the authors’ arguments about defining a safe limit based on natural variations.

[Mugundan]

Rachna, hammer thrower, tests positive for three steroids in AIU test. This was done before the Asian Games. She got selected for the Asian Games on the strength of her 65.03m performance in the Inter-State meet. She finished ninth in Hangzhou with 58-plus.
That she was tested so close to the games (Sept 24) and still found positive is baffling.
https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/spo ... -dope.html

[prasen9]

Can a safe limit be based on natural variations? When natural high levels of a substance is tolerated by the body but artificial ingestion causes problems, this approach does not work. Is there evidence that doping at levels that is within the natural variation is harmless? I doubt it is but if the evidence says so, so be it. I suspect if that was so, then people would have already implemented this but I am not sure.

[Mugundan]

Can a safe limit be based on natural variations? When natural high levels of a substance is tolerated by the body but artificial ingestion causes problems, this approach does not work. Is there evidence that doping at levels that is within the natural variation is harmless? I doubt it is but if the evidence says so, so be it. I suspect if that was so, then people would have already implemented this but I am not sure.

If you were referring to safe limits (from a health perspective) for humans, I suppose all steroids are harmful unless used, under medical supervision for medical reason.
If you were referring to safe (undetectable) levels for athletes, there are only a limited number of endogenous (within the body) steroids, mainly testosterone, nandrolone and boldenone. Usually, it is testosterone and nandrolone cases that are mostly caught. Now, they have a test IRMS (Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry) that determines whether the substance came from outside (exogenous origin) the body or from within. Thus, any Testosterone or Nandrolone positive case is put through IRMS (below a level) to determine whether the athlete had substance/s from outside.
This is technical document for IRMS:
(Rather complicated)
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/ ... ng_0_0.pdf
This one for Endogenous Anabolic Androgenic Steroids
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/ ... _v_2.0.pdf

[Kumar]

Can a safe limit be based on natural variations? When natural high levels of a substance is tolerated by the body but artificial ingestion causes problems, this approach does not work. Is there evidence that doping at levels that is within the natural variation is harmless? I doubt it is but if the evidence says so, so be it. I suspect if that was so, then people would have already implemented this but I am not sure.

Well if it is not considered unsafe for women with naturally higher levels of testosterone to take hormone treatment to reduce (which may not be medically necessary) to participate ,why would it be considered unsafe to take medicines that boost your levels to naturally accepted levels?This also probably saves in expensive test that Mugundan mentioned and probably level sets the field. We can fine tune those levels based on the height/ weight as well . It is very possible that the substance that are used may be unsafe,but if the medication is legal let them compete. If they take illegal medication, they are risking not only their career, but also their freedom

[prasen9]

Again, I do not know. Is taking medicine to lower testestorone the same risk/side-effects as taking testerterone? Or for that matter any steroid?

[Kumar]

There are legal medicines to treat for low testosterone. There is no medicine that is absolutely safe. There are always side effects and unknowns.

Again I would like sports to be completely pure, but with the amount of money involved, I don’t know if that will ever happen.

[prasen9]

It will never happen. There will always be a lot of cheats. We keep going.

What should happen is that whatever causes additional risks that are significant should be banned. And, that is what it is today. Legalizing that to some effect even at a lower degree is not going to change the risks.

Naturally produced substances and artificially induced substances even though both cause the same level of measured substance in the body is not the same. So the current regime makes sense. Of course, whatever tweaks need to be made should be made and things that are not defensible should be taken out.

[Mugundan]

Can a safe limit be based on natural variations? When natural high levels of a substance is tolerated by the body but artificial ingestion causes problems, this approach does not work. Is there evidence that doping at levels that is within the natural variation is harmless? I doubt it is but if the evidence says so, so be it. I suspect if that was so, then people would have already implemented this but I am not sure.

Well if it is not considered unsafe for women with naturally higher levels of testosterone to take hormone treatment to reduce (which may not be medically necessary) to participate ,why would it be considered unsafe to take medicines that boost your levels to naturally accepted levels? This also probably saves in expensive test that Mugundan mentioned and probably level sets the field. We can fine tune those levels based on the height/ weight as well . It is very possible that the substance that are used may be unsafe, but if the medication is legal let them compete. If they take illegal medication, they are risking not only their career, but also their freedom

"Naturally-occurring testosterone" among women was a term developed by the media, critics and a section of the scientific community to explain the issue in the Dutee Chand 'hyperandrogenism' case.
It is true both men and women produce testosterone; men at a higher level and women at much smaller levels. The upper limit kept by the IAAF at the time of the Dutee Chand case was 5 nmol/L. Now, under the new regulations that came into force in March 2023, the limit is 2.5 nmol.
What are the normal levels:
Here is a quick look at it:
https://www.mountsinai.org/health-libra ... 20nmol%2FL
Then, why do some women produce levels close to male levels in athletics (and perhaps other sports about which we have very little information)?
That is because they have testes (undescended)
In fact, one of the conditions that the WA (formerly IAAF) has kept for the classification is: And individual should have undescended testes.
This is among a few other conditions that might require the female athlete to bring down the levels. By suppression through medication or through surgery if the athlete so desires.
Perhaps unwittingly, we have slipped into "Gender/Sex/DSD" from doping. This was bound to happen, though.
There are hundreds of articles and scientific papers on DSD athletes on the internet, about testosterone levels, about the ethical issue involved in regulating DSD athletes and their T-levels etc. There may not be unanimity of views.
I have always felt that women with testes should not be allowed to compete in the female category.

[Mugundan]

A few more points need further elaboration on this thread:
What if the athlete (male) has to use testosterone for infertility treatment:
Though it is very rare that a doctor would advise testosterone for treatment of infertility, athletes have come up with this argument in India and abroad.
The first point for the athlete is in case testosterone is prescribed, he will need to take a TUE (therapeutic use exemption) from the anti-doping agency concerned before he starts using it. If it is granted at the domestic level, WADA and the international federation concerned will have the opportunity to challenge it at CAS.
For a woman, instead of testosterone for low estrogen levels, normally estrogen-boosting drugs would be prescribed by the doctors. Again the process would be the same as that for men needing Testosterone, go through the TUE process etc.
While Clomiphene (helps in ovulation) is often used by women, if used by men, it helps increase sperm count and testosterone levels. Thus it may be used by men to boost testosterone in sports.
Here's one famous example of a clomiphene case:
https://talksport.com/sport/boxing/1211 ... -jr-fight/
How does clomiphene act in men and women?
https://txfertility.com/fertility-treat ... rm%20count.
(may need a few more additions)