Everyone has heard of doping, and some also know that androgens are the substances most commonly used by male and female athletes to improve performance. Protein synthesis hormones are also often talked about. People have mixed feelings about these things. Let’s join the discussion too.
"What is doping?"
The origin of the word doping is known only to the small group of people who first used it. The French word for stimulant "dopage" comes from "dop," the name of a grape liqueur that dancers from the Kafirs tribe of South Africa drink to get high. Doping and related concepts are specifically discussed in a well-known article studying the use of androgens in athletes.
Doping is the use of certain substances or means to artificially improve the physical fitness of people or competition animals, especially to improve their sports performance.
“Why are androgens used as doping by athletes?”
In fact, doping is used to achieve two purposes:
——On the one hand, it increases mental tension and aggression;
——On the other hand, improve muscle potential.
Androgens are thought to have both of these effects. But androgens also have the effect of increasing sexual desire, which is not needed in sports. As a result, chemists are working hard to find new compounds that can increase muscle strength and induce a winning frenzy without affecting reproduction.
According to research by sports historians, it was in the Kochakian that people began to study protein synthesis hormone molecules in castrated dogs. Later, the Germans in World War II first thought of supplementing androgens to their elite troops to improve their performance. aggressiveness.
Androgens have gradually invaded the sports world, causing a huge disparity in performance between athletes who are accompanied by sports endocrinologists and athletes who only rely on the power of nature to fight.
It is known to improve strength and endurance, with the Indians in the Andes chewing coca leaves and the ancient Greeks eating sesame seeds. Bodybuilders and weightlifters began using androgens around 1950, and the practice spread throughout the sports world. This habit later spread to young people who are not engaged in competitive sports, so that some estimates suggest that 250,000 to 500,000 young men use or useHave used androgens or protein synthesis hormones.
If you consider that some of them take these preparations by mouth and inject them at the same time, and their dosage exceeds the recommended amount, reaching 4 to 8 times the dosage recommended by doctors, then you can understand why this has become a public health problem and caused medical and administrative problems. The authorities are uneasy. In particular, metabolite dependence has been observed in certain populations.
“What is the scientific basis for using androgens as stimulants?”
We have seen above that ketones build muscle and are voluntarily acknowledged to increase aggression. But there are more subtle reasons for this effect. During muscle tension or sustained work, the amount of circulating ketones decreases and the amount of hydrocortisone (a hormone that is very similar to cortisone and has similar effects) increases. We can say that hormones are classified according to their excitatory and restorative effects, and there are roughly two major systems.
Cortisone breaks down molecules to provide energy, while androgens and growth hormone (secreted by the pituitary gland) rebuild reserves. We did not mention insulin, which aids in the absorption of food provided by the digestive tract.
Therefore, in order to prevent excessive muscle loss and maintain muscle size, it is completely logical to replenish ketones before exerting physical strength, although it is forbidden and dishonest to do so.
“What are chemists studying?”
Their dream is to synthesize a molecule that only acts on muscles and has no effect on reproductive organs at all. This dream has been partially realized, but it has not achieved the expected effect of improving performance.
It is almost impossible for a non-scientific reader to understand how two very similar molecules, which act on the same receptor to stimulate target cells, can have two different effects. We are limited to clarifying this point here: the natural hormone ketone will automatically add two hydrogen atoms in the genitals and become another hormone dihydroketone, which is more powerful than its predecessor and has a negative impact on the reproductive organs. Has a strong stimulant effect.
Importantly, dihydroketone has little effect on muscles and is less effective than the natural hormone, ketone. On the contrary, protein synthesis hormones (usually belonging to the nandrolone family) are not easily receptive to these two protons, so they have little effect on reproductive organs, but have the greatest effect on muscles.
In addition, nandrolone is more easily captured by sex hormone binding proteins in the blood than nandrolone. Therefore, nandrolone does have a greater effect on muscles than on reproductive organs, and its effect is even better than ketone itself.
These protein synthesis hormones are therefore very popular with athletes, especially bodybuilders, who consume large amounts of these preparations, at least under strict control.This is the case during the intermission period between official competitions.
“Have the benefits of androgens been proven for athletes?”
No. Because even though it's unusual today, researchers, especially experts in the fields of sports and hormones, admit that they can't answer an important question: Does using hormones actually lead to better athletic performance than not using them?
Some authors say that androgens primarily act as placebos, allowing athletes to train more effectively. Other authors admit that the euphoric state and elimination of fatigue caused by hormones "actually" help athletes train more appropriately and therefore have a "real" effect.
But people also see that there is still a considerable distance between this and the goal pursued-developed muscles and physical strength.
Recently, a Finnish publication sent shockwaves through the sports world by reporting on a study on this scientifically difficult subject.
There are three groups of athletes. The first group is given 40 mg of ketone orally, the second group is given a placebo, and the third group is not given any medicine for comparison. It was seen that the group taking the placebo became irritable, easily moved, and felt angry and frustrated. This observation was made simultaneously by the subjects themselves and by the experts who examined them. Of course, no one here knows who got the placebo and who got the androgens.
The researchers were certainly surprised that there was no placebo effect in the ketone group. This result can be explained in part by the fact that when a person takes hormones, the well-known automatic control mechanism kicks in and the pills reduce the secretion of ketones.
“Are there any harm in using hormones outside of official competition?”
This question needs to be distinguished between several situations, because hormones act on muscles and also act on pills through the nervous system and pituitary gland. When a man receives an overdose of metabotropic hormones, his penis shrinks and sperm production slows. Sooner or later, he will stop producing sperm altogether or produce only very small amounts. But when he stopped using the metabotropin, the pill function returned to normal and sperm reappeared.
Yet men who have long used metabolites admit that they are a real drug. They often experience impotence once they stop taking orally administered or injected medications. They also know that if they use chorionic gonadotropin, which stimulates the penis to produce its own androgens, they can cure this problem of insufficient erection.
A more serious and complicated problem may arise: the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol shifts in an unfavorable direction, which will cause premature aging of blood vessels. But people found that as long as the medication is stopped, the cholesterol can return to normal.
There is one last question. Athletes who take the drug experience mood swings that sometimes manifest in aggression. This is not that dangerous in the long run. If he gets irritated by those around him and gets into a fight, in rare cases it can have disastrous consequences.
There have been numerous reports of crimes committed by doping athletes: a Finnish track and field athlete killed his girlfriend; another Finnish athlete originally from Sweden killed his best friend, and another injured six personal. All of these cases have been attributed to the abuse of metabotropic steroids. To this day, however, it is still not at all certain that metabolites actually have this dangerous effect in triggering aggression in men. Men who enjoy these sports and are addicted to hormones do seem to have different personalities than other athletes, and some of them are more prone to physical activity.
In short, today we cannot be sure that using protein synthesis hormones is necessarily dangerous.
"Is it possible to detect doping users without missing a beat through biological testing?"
If it is a synthetic molecule that is not secreted by the human body, it will definitely be discovered. There are currently 13 such substances banned for use by athletes.
On the contrary, if pure ketones are involved, despite the superb skills of chemists, no matter how sophisticated the determination method is, there is no absolute certainty in determining who has used doping.
Getting into the details of doping testing takes us into the realm of chemical technology, which is familiar neither to the layperson nor to most doctors.
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