• "Clean" supplements cause nandrolone positives
• Blood-booster drug maker also makes the test
• IOC Medical Commission stand on asthma drugs will draw fire
• Score one for the drug police
• Sports medicine conference for British triathletes
• Ex-Ironman seeks women for menstrual study
• Elite triathletes invited back to "Labman Hawaii"
June 25, 2001, Vista, California
Dr. Wilhelm Schaenzer, dean of the International Olympic Committee’s drug testers in Germany, has been researching the connection between dietary supplements and a rash of positive drug tests for nandrolone for more than a year.
It now appears that he has found further evidence to suggest that some of the positives may indeed be coming from supplements athletes believed to be "safe," according to news reports Monday.
Schaenzer heads the Institute of Biochemistry at Cologne's Sports University—the country's best-known IOC drug testing lab. He's the Don Catlin of Germany. Catlin heads the best-known IOC drug lab in this country, at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Schaenzer has been liberally quoted on the subject of nandrolone positives over the past few years and is unequivocal in his view that such positive tests cannot be the result of a natural occurrence, and that the drug is not produced by the body.
Does Schaenzer believe that all these athletes testing positive for nandrolone––including triathletes Spencer Smith and Olivier Bernhard––doped intentionally? Tests from his laboratory have indicated––in reports coming out since January, and again Monday––that there is an alternative explanation for the positives.
Dr. Schaenzer was not particularly sympathetic to naysayers when his lab confirmed a positive test for practically retired British sprinter Linford Christie. But when German runner Dieter Baumann also came up positive, the doctor worked double-time to test everything the revered German middle-distance runner had consumed. He found the culprit: nandrolone injected in a tube of Baumann’s toothpaste.
Once in the nandrolone-detecting groove, the doctor continued to spend time over the last year or so testing all sorts of supplements that do not contain nandrolone. Runner’s World reported in January that Dr. Schaenzer, "tested about 100 supplements from Europe and the United States, and found that 16 were contaminated with pro-hormones, which are metabolized to create nandrolone."
AP, Reuters, and the International Herald Tribune reported Monday that Dr. Schaenzer has found, in the words of the Tribune's story, "evidence of a link between dietary supplements and positive tests for the anabolic steroid nandrolone, possibly explaining a recent spate of high-profile doping incidents in sports."
It had been previously reported in Germany that less expensive supplements––some made in former East Bloc countries––were found to contain traces of nandrolone that appeared as a positive result in drug tests.
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Blood-booster drug maker also makes the test
May 21, 2001, Vista, California (www.triathlonlive.com):
The newest drug in the illicit endurance drug pipeline is RSR-13. It is made by a Denver-based company called Allos Therapeutics, Inc. How new is RSR-13? It is only in its clinical trial stage, which means it isn’t approved yet for use anywhere in the world. Even though RSR-13 is on the FDA fast track, it won’t be available for use for at least 2 to 3 years.
Yet it seems to have found its way into the dufflebags of European cyclists racing in the Giro d’Italia, according to news reports.
Allos' director of corporate communications, Monique Greer, questions this. "We’ve heard the reports, and we’re committed to cooperating, but we haven't heard anything yet [other than what’s been reported in the news]. No investigator or police representative has contacted us, and it’s been two weeks."
What is RSR-13? It is not a blood booster per se, like EPO. It does not add blood cells, it does not raise one’s hematocrit. But it does enhance the ability of blood cells––specifically the hemoglobin carried within red blood cells––to release oxygen. The solution Allos is trying to effect is the oxygenation of cancer cells. Poorly oxygenated cancer cells are not as susceptible to radiation treatment.
But the side-benefit of increased oxygenation at the tissue site has caused Allos to seek to treat many diseases and clinical conditions attributed to or aggravated by oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia. In layman’s terms, this means that RSR-13 won’t give you any more red blood cells, but it’ll maximize the efficiency of those you do have.
News sources are reporting that there is no test to detect RSR-13. The bad news for unscrupulous endurance athletes, though, is that this is temporary. Allos has certainly been aware -- both from the history of other red blood cell enhancers like EPO, and from the simple proximity of Allos Therapeutics, Inc., to two of the world's leading centers of endurance sports athletes (Boulder and Colorado Springs) -- that RSR13 will be attractive to drug cheats. Allos has therefore already developed a test in conjunction with Dr. Don Catlin, chief among the USOC’s anti-doping scientists and head of UCLA’s drug testing lab.
"We’ve been pretty proactive, unlike a lot of companies," said Greer. RSR-13 can be easily detected in urine within 24 hours of use."
Dr. Catlin echoed Greer’s words. When asked if Allos has in fact been a "good citizen" of the pharmaceutical industry by trying to keep this drug out of the hands of the unscrupulous endurance athletes, he answer was an emphatic, "Definately yes."
The test is not yet entirely ready for use, but it appears close. We further asked if the drug's efficacy as an oxygenator is longer-lived than the test, which is to say, might somebody be able to benefit from RSR13 past the point when the test would detect RSR13 usage?
"I doubt it," said Catlin. "But it has not been studied. We do not know yet because the work is in-progress."
The RSR-13 threat seems to be just about over before it’s even started. Score another one for the drug police.
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IOC Medical Commission stand on asthma drugs will draw fire
May 18, 2001, Vista, California (www.triathlonlive.com):
Yesterday the IOC issued a press release describing a new, tougher stand on athletes who claim to have as asthmatic condition, and it's sure to draw fierce fire from asthma assocations and medical professionals. The release––found on the IOC's website––reads as follows:
17 May 2001 For the first time, the IOC Medical Commission will require Olympic athletes, seeking authorization to use asthma medication during the Olympic Games, to provide clinical and laboratory proof of their ailment, the Medical Commission announced today.
Starting in Salt Lake City, a group of experts will examine the information supplied by the athletes and will determine, on a case by case basis, the need to conduct verification tests. When the proof is found to be insufficient, the Medical Commission will have the right to turn down the athlete’s request.
Numerous anti-asthmatics contain beta-2 agonists, which are on the list of prohibited substances. It has been proven that the systematic abuse of these substances produces anabolic effects.
The IOC Medical Commission is reinforcing its position on this matter to protect athletes from the dangers of mistaken diagnoses. It has noted a significant increase in the use of asthma medication containing beta-2 agonists during recent editions of the Olympic Games, especially in endurance sports.
It is probable that this new stand will draw fire from asthma experts and associations across America, not only because of the release above, but because of accompanying remarks apparently made––contained in an artircle by Fox Sports Australia––by the head of the IOC Medical Commission, Prince Alexander de Merode. The article reports that de Merode:
"...recently revealed that in the Sydney Olympics seven percent of the athletes had asthma.
"'In the rest of the population, only one percent suffer from asthma. Very bizarre. At times it looks like Games for the Sick,' he said."
The well-regarded Allergy and Asthma Foundation believes that 17 million Americans have asthma. When contacted for this story, the American Academy of Allergy and Asthma and Immunology gave roughly the same total. The census conducted last year reports that there are 281 million Americans. Simple math yields that these organizations believe that there more than 6% of Americans are asthmatic.
There is also considerable disagreement as to whether beta-2-agonists––the class of drug containing rescue medications such as the inhalers Ventolin (Glaxo Smithkline) and Proventil (Schering Plough)––actually demonstrate significant anabolic effects. Both this fact and the apparent rough agreement between the number of asthmatics in Sydney and in the general population generated this reaction from Mark Sisson, Secretary General of the International Triathlon Union (ITU )––triathlon's world governing body––and architect of the ITU's doping policy:
"Do you know why so many swimmers are asthmatic,?" asked "Because pediatric doctors the world over prescribe swimming to their young asthmatic patients. That's also why there are so many asthmatic triathletes; because they started out as swimmers.
"Furthermore, it is my own private opinion that a lot of people who don't or wouldn't exhibit symptoms of asthma––especially exercise induced asthma––would if they were athletes. Years of that kind of exertion, intaking that volume of air, those endocrinological changes, mean that an athlete such as [World and Ironman champ] Greg Welch, who never exhibited asthma for most of his career, suddenly come down with symptoms of asthma in adulthood.
"If that's correct that 7% of athletes in Sydney considered themselves asthmatic, it's a miracle that the number is that low, especially considering the overproportionate number of swimmers and triathletes in the Olympic athlete population versus the general population.
"You've got to balance the purported anabolic effect of beta-2-agonists against the very real fact that people have a life threatening disease. I've been saying for six years that we ought to just simply allow asthma drugs with no restriction, except to test for a threshold level in the blood to keep real abuse from occuring."
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Score one for the drug police
March 4, 2001, Vista, California (www.triathlonlive.com):
The latest drug of choice for those who’d win at any cost is hydroxyethyl starch (HES). It was found running through the veins of a significant part of the Finnish cross-country ski team at their recent world championships.
Much loved and venerated Harri Kirvesniemi, at 42 years old finally a nordic worlds gold medal winner (via the relay)––he’s won 11 Olympic medals in his career––and five of his teammates (four men, two women) all tested positive for doping. A search by Finnish police also turned up banned substances and bloody syringes belonging to the Finnish Ski Association. All six were reported to have been injected with HES. What is this drug, why did these athletes take it?
HES is a plasma volume expander, banned last year by the International Olympic Committee. While media reports have stated that HES can be used to hide the presence of other drugs, it is not a masking agent per se.
Plasma volume expanders are used to maintain circulatory system fluid volume and blood pressure after significant losses of blood occur during surgery or trauma. HES is often used in emergency situations, for burn victims, and for ischemic stroke. Prior to HES plasma volume expanders included general intravenous fluids and albumin. HES, though, is more physiologically similar to plasma.
Because HES expands the amount of plasma circulating it therefore lowers the red blood cell count on a percentage basis (hematocrit). So, if an athlete was taking EPO, causing his or her hematocrit to jump to, say, 52%, HES would lower the hematocrit without reducing the total amount of red blood cells.
While there is no effective test for EPO, certain governing bodies––cycling’s federation for example––requires an athlete’s withdrawal from competition for health reasons if a hematocrit above 50 is discovered. HES would prevent that from happening. The unproven, but presumptive, suspicion is that an athlete caught taking HES is also guilty of taking EPO or a similar blood-boosting mechanism.
Will this drug make its way into triathlon? Only to the degree that blood-boosting has invaded multisport. That is a subject for another day.
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Sports medicine conference for British triathletes
January 26, 2000 London, England (www.triathlonlive.com):
Dr. Rod Jaques, the British Triathlon Association's medical advisor, has organised the fifth BTA Sports Medicine and Science Conference for Saturday, 19 February, in London.
The one-day seminar will be a chance for professionals involved with the sport to meet Gregoire Millet, the BTA's Performance Director who has managed to guide the GBR elite to top rankings on the eve of the Sydney Olympics. Millet is speaking on 'Altitude and alternative hypoxic methods: pros and cons for triathlon training', but would additionally be available for conversations and mingling.
The seminar will be at the British Olympic Medical Centre (BOMC), Northwick Park Hospital, London. Other speakers include:
- nutritional consultant Gill Horgan ('Ergogenic aids in triathlon and nutrition for long distance triathletes');
- ETU research committee chair Veronica Vleck ('Analysing the Sydney Olympic race for the GB triathletes;);
- physiologist David Bentley ('Muscular strength and power in triathletes: definition and significance') ;
- physiologist Paul Davies ('Power crank data and pack-smart racing');
- BTA doctor Andy Murphy ('Knee injuries in endurance exercise'); and
- BTA physiotherapist Tim Edbrook ('Triathlon back problems').
Anyone else who wishes to make a presentation may contact Dr. Jaques (mailto:rod@jaqueshome.freeserve.co.uk). All triathletes, coaches, doctors, sports scientists, nutrionalists and allied professionals are welcome. The cost is £5, and lunch is extra. To book a place, please phone Jabeen or Sarah at the BOMC on (+44) 0181 864-0609.
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Ex-Ironman seeks women for menstrual study
January 21, 2000, Hong Kong (www.triathlonlive.com):
Kim Isherwood, a Hong Kong pro who has raced several Ironmans, is seeking elite female triathletes worldwide to participate in a study for her Masters degree in sports science. Its topic: "Effects of Menstruation [ and P.M.S] on Elite Athletes in Endurance Sports."
She intends to collect data by questionnaire. Each woman would be required to spend 10 or 15 minutes daily (or every other day) filling out details over the course of two full mentrual cycles, or eight weeks.
"I feel this will harvest some very interesting data that may help women athletes plan training better," Isherwood says. "It would add to a body of knowledge that is, for now, quite spare."
Isherwood is recruiting elite- or national-level women who menstruate fairly regularly. Questionnaires will be mailed to them or possibly set up on a website. Her project is still in the proposal stage, but she needs urgently to have an indication of the number of women who may be interested. Women who "qualify" as elite, she says, are women who are racing pro, or who have represented a national team in any competition.
Those who are interested may contact Isherwood via Ruth Hunt, the national coach for Hong Kong.
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Elite triathletes invited back to "Labman Hawaii"
January 6, 2000. Kona, Hawaii, USA (www.triathlonlive.com):
Elite triathletes worldwide have been invited to train at altitude for five weeks this spring through "Labman Hawaii," a Big Island-based, non-profit exercise research project.
The invitation is supported by the ITU, which has an ITU World Cup scheduled in Kona for April 1. The project is the work of some Hawaiian physiologists who have been studying triathletes for several years. Dr. Douglas Hiller, president of Labman Hawaii, is also a member of the ITU Medical Committee.
This is the second year in a row that ITU triathletes have been invited to take part in the five-week program. The project tests the "live high, train low" hypothesis, which maintains that athletes can reap the benefits of living at altitude while training efficiently at sea level.
Labman will be hosting a "Live High, Train Low" altitude camp between February 16 and March 22. Athletes will live at altitude (6,000 to 7,000 feet), and train at sea level for a five-week period. Labman will provide food, lodging, transportation, and physiological testing. Testing will include VO2MAX on treadmill and bike, complete blood work, and body composition analysis.
Labman hosted a similar camp in July, 1999, where individuals increased their VO2MAX/treadmill by as much as 15-20% in some cases.
The camp is free to elite triathletes. However, all athletes are responsible for their airfare to Hawaii.
Elite athletes interested in the camp may contact Laura , or call (808) 885 2132, for an application and more information.
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