Blood Transfusion in Sports

Toxin Revue, 1999

Peptide hormones have been abused in sports to improve physical performances since recombinant products which are the exact replicate of their natural models became available. Both human growth hormone and erythropoietin are now available in large quantities on the unofficial market for those who want to use them for applications lying outside the accepted medical applications. Such abuse calls for strict controls, because non-medical abuses of these powerhl products can produce dangerous side-effects. The duration time of both peptides in the body is so short that direct detection of the recombinant products is impossible. The actual tests available for their detection rely on immunological assays which are not considered good enough for determining their abuse in sports. All possible secondary markers are now being sought for adoption as a screening test which still requires confirmation by the direct measurement of the hormones themselves. Blood samples might well appear to be more useful for the comparison of quantitative data obtained from carefully selected secondary markers of the abuse of these drugs although large population studies on their variations are not yet accomplished. The final proof of the abuse of such products is sought through the use of the newest analytical techniques like liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The state of the art in this field is analysed in view of the specific problems that any doping control laboratory is faced with, including the ethical and legal requirements.

Asian Journal of Andrology, 2008

Growth Hormone (GH) is an important and powerful metabolic hormone that is secreted in a pulsatile pattern from cells in the anterior pituitary, influenced by several normal and pathophysiological conditions. Human GH was first isolated in the 1950s and human derived cadaveric GH was initially used to treat patients with GH deficiency. However, synthetic recombinant GH has been widely available since the mid-1980s and the advent of this recombinant GH boosted the abuse of GH as a doping agent. Doping with GH is a well-known problem among elite athletes and among people training at gyms, but is forbidden for both medical and ethical reasons. It is mainly the anabolic and, to some extent, the lipolytic effects of GH that is valued by its users. Even though GH's rumour as an effective ergogenic drug among athletes, the effectiveness of GH as a single doping agent has been questioned during the last few years. There is a lack of scientific evidence that GH in supraphysiological doses has additional effects on muscle exercise performance other than those obtained from optimised training and diet itself. However, there might be synergistic effects if GH is combined with, for example, anabolic steroids, and GH seems to have positive effect on collagen synthesis. Regardless of whether or not GH doping is effective, there is a need for a reliable test method to detect GH doping. Several issues have made the development of a method for detecting GH doping complicated but a method has been presented and used in the Olympics in Athens and Turin. A problem with the method used, is the short time span (24-36 hours) from the last GH administration during which the test effectively can reveal doping. Therefore, out-of-competition testing will be crucial.However, work with different approaches to develop an alternative, reliable test is ongoing.

2012

British Journal of Pharmacology, 2008

Revista Brasileira de Medicina do Esporte, 2003

Journal of Chromatography B: Biomedical Sciences and Applications, 1996

The misuse of human growth hormone (hGH) in sport is deemed to be unethical and dangerous because of various adverse effects. Thus, it has been added to the International Olympic Committee list of banned substances. Until now, the very low concentration of hGH in the urine made its measurement difficult using classical methodology. Indeed, for routine diagnosis, only plasma measurements were available. However, unlike blood samples, urine is generally provided in abundant quantities and is, at present, the only body fluid allowed to be analysed in sport doping controls. A recently developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Norditest) makes it now possible, without any extraction, to measure urinary hGH (u-hGH) in a dynamic range of 2–50 ng hGH/1. In our protocol, untreated and treated non-athlete volunteers were followed. Some of them received therapeutical doses of recombinant hGH (Norditropin) for one week either intramuscularly (three increasing doses) or subcutaneously (12 I.U. every day). The u-hGH excretion after treatment showed dramatic increases of 50–100 times the basal values and returned to almost the mean normal level after 24 h. u-hGH was also measured in samples provided by the anti-doping controls at major and minor competitions. Depending on the type of efforts made during the competition, the hGH concentration in urine was dramatically increased. Insulin-like growth factor binding proteins and β2-microglobulins in urine and/or in blood could be necessary for the correct investigation of any hGH doping test procedure.

Clinica Chimica Acta, 2005

Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine, 2011

Clinical Endocrinology, 1998

2001