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Other groups are more public about their progress. Acceleron, a company based in Cambridge, MA, that is developing a myostatin inhibitor, says that it has already developed a test for research purposes that is capable of detecting the drug in blood. And scientists at the Center for Preventive Doping Research, German Sport University Cologne, are working on a test for SARMs.
Fortunately, scientists say that detecting abuse of these two new classes of drugs is likely to be easier than detecting two doping agents that have plagued the sports world in recent years. Erythropoietin, which stimulates growth of red blood cells and is used to treat anemia patients, is processed quickly by the body, making it difficult to detect.Human growth hormone, which boosts cell growth, is a naturally occurring hormone. Tests must be able to discriminate between the natural hormone and the pharmaceutically derived version. "People who are trying to cheat like to use a steroid naturally present in the body, because it makes it much more difficult for labs to detect," says Don Catlin, founder of Anti-Doping Research, a nonprofit research institute based in Los Angeles.
Myostatin inhibitors present a particularly interesting case for WADA. In 2004, scientists published a paper describing an abnormally muscular German toddler who carried mutations in both copies of his myostatin gene. The boy's mother, who had been a professional athlete, was found to have one defective copy of the gene, raising questions about how to deal with athletes who have naturally occurring genetic mutations that give them benefits similar to those offered by performance-enhancing drugs. "We have ethicists thinking about those issues and guiding us in the future," says Rabin. "We need to maintain fair play for all competitors." The issue is likely to grow as advances in genomics allow scientists to uncover additional variants linked to muscle, or other factors related to athletic ability.
Athletes using performance drugs can't stay ahead of detection methods for very long.
Researchers boost growth of muscle stem cells to stop age-related muscle deterioration.
not only for muscle wasting diseases
Could this also be used as an alternative to surgery for weight loss patients?
After all when we have more lean muscle it increases metabolism.
Re: not only for muscle wasting diseases
In the March 1 2002 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation it was reported by Hopkins scientists that - for mice genetically altered to get fat, knocking out the myostatin gene keeps them leaner and healthier. "Mighty" versions of those obese animals did not develop insulin resistance.
In the first century AD., Roman gladiators, who got their name from the short Roman sword, the gladius, experimented with caffeine, alcohol, nitroglycerin, opium, and strychnine, in order to help them compete in the arena. Sugar Ray Robinson admitted to drinking a cup of ox blood regularily to boost his strength. The governor of California, Arnold Swarzenegger, confessed to using steroids. The sport of swimming, track and field, and cycling has been riddled with the practice of using performance enhancers to level the playing field. So if you were an athelete who specialized in one particular sport for a number of years and saw his fellow competitors cheating on a regular basis, how long do you think it would take before you were tempted to do the same?
(professional) Sports - a meaningless human activity
Perhaps we should also ask a deeper question, not just a technical one on doping.
What is the real purpose of professional sports?
Sports had a real-life use in the old days. Sports simulated and enhanced the skills necessary for survival. It was important for a community to know who the fastest, strongest, most skillful members were, so they could be used for hunting and warfare.
But what is the point of this today? Running in circles around a track, throwing or hitting some balls in completely arbitrary games?...Not only that, but people dedicating their entire lives, to say, how to hit perfectly a golf ball...????...Also drugging yourself so you can perform highly in activities which are utterly useless and pointless.
This only shows how deeply delusional the masses are.
PS - personal sporting activities are of course a different category.
Guest (rafael7)
Re: (professional) Sports - a meaningless human activity
I am glad someone posed the question of why do we have professional sports. It is my understanding that competitive sport was born with the creation of the Olympic games. The Greeks represent to me the passage from East to West in the development and evolution of the human mind and human nature as it relates to its environment.
The Eastern mindset puts the 'group' before the individual. The Western mindset grants the 'individual' a unique identity with corresponding rights and responsibilities. Competitive sport is the ultimate expression of self (on a physical level). Thusly we owe our entire perspective of life, living, and loving to the shattering of these Eastern constraints.
So if we view sport as a celebration of self, of the individual encouraged, praised and elevated in stature for individual achievement, must we not then condemn the perversion of this high ideal through the use artificial and contrived means. Professional sport is a money machine, and as such has no conscience. The outrage against doping is a product of 'unfair business practices' more than it is an insult to the purists among sports fans.
I like the idea of a MUTANT LEAGUE as previously proffered. Let them dope, who cares, but keep the playing field level, and let the players be known for what they are. Rant complete.
Re: (professional) Sports - a meaningless human activity
Everything has some meaning. Professional sports is the opiate of the couch potatoes. We can live our lives vicariously through the modern day gladiators. So they provide something of value to the public.
They also provide a living for the gladiators themselves and their families. But because its a profession - there is the pressure to perform and the temptation to abuse the body for short term gains. Lance Armstrong? Chris Benoit? the list is endless.
I'll agree that people who naturally have performance-enhancing mutations should be left alone. Every extraordinary athlete can give partial credit to his genes; what sense does it make to say, "Well, genes a, b and c are okay, but gene z, THAT'S not fair."
As a 45-year-old, I can tell you young ones out there that muscle wasting is not the main issue as you age. The underlying problem is "joint wasting." This causes strenuous exercise to become more and more painful, until finally you give it up entirely. At that point, your muscles start atrophying.
I would gladly take medicine that restored my joints to the proper working order I had when I was 20 -- even if I knew ahead of time that it would take 10 years off my life. (And please, don't anybody suggest glucosamine as the magic solution.)
Orthopedist John Uribe recommends building stronger quadriceps and hamstrings to preserve knee function despite aging, but he also says the knee benefits from carrying less weight--lose the love handles and excessive upper body muscle mass.
At 62, creating stronger muscle in the quads and hams is well nigh impossible without some ergogenic drugs. I have seen no proof that such sensible drug usage shortens life.
Guest (fastfilm)
I hope I am not misinterpreting your statement, but it seems that you're saying that at age 45 your joints are not working well enough to allow you to exercise vigorously (without pain)? If so, that is too bad -- but don't assume that it's true for everyone. I'm 41 and I notice almost no difference at all in my joints from when I was 20. (Of course that could change in the next 4 years.) Are you running, or have you been a runner? That seems particularly hard on one's joints. Or perhaps you have some genetic pre-dispostion? My mother had quite serious arthritis by my age, so perhaps I've dodged that bullet. Either way, my joints haven't kept me from exercising like a madman. Of course, my exercise of choice is mainly swimming, so perhaps I would find a different experience if I were running 5 miles a day. Perhaps you should try swimming?
What surgeries are there fo being underweight?
And
Whats the sense of having good joints forever to be able to exercise if it would cost you ten years anyway?Isnt the point of exercise to live longer?
For me at least, the point of exercise is NOT so that you can live longer. You do it because having a fit body allows you to enjoy life. And hopefully you can enjoy the exercise some.
Do you REALLY want to spend your last 30 years, from say 50 to 80, getting progressively all hunched-up and crippled, barely able to move around or to do anything with your hands, because of the shooting agony that entails? If some drug could give you a choice, wouldn't you rather have 20 years of good health and vigorous activity instead? All I'm saying is, I'd opt for the latter.
1. If you happen to be born with silent myostatin gene(s), then it's ok to win olympic gold medals.
2. If you try to minimise the effect of myostatin via biochemical means, you are cheating? Duh...
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rajnz
25 Comments
What is fair and unfair?
People with extraordinary athletic ability are likely to have genes or combination of genes that give them their ability. This can of course be enhanced by diet and training.
The genes that they have inherited produce proteins or other compounds, that give them extraordinary strength, or speed or flexibility or agility. This could also be as a result of the genes blocking the effect of other compounds which otherwise limit these abilities in "normal" populations, such as the genes, naturally occurring, which block myostatin in "freak" animals and humans.
We would not accuse these "freaks" of cheating if they went onto win Olympic medals. Why then should we judge people as cheats who use, or will in future use, science to mimic the effects that these athletic "freaks" naturally enjoy.
To my mind anabolic steroids should be banned, not because they are unfair, but because they are not a natural phenomenon, because they lopsidedly enhance performance in the short term, and because they cause drastic harm to the person taking them and even to others because of "droid rage".
Will mimics of naturally occurring genetic enhancing effects also cause harm to the body? No! How do we know? Because extraordinary athletes generally enjoy long and healthy lives so using science to mimic these genetic effects in lesser mortals will also not harm the body - it has been tried and tested by evolution.
More importantly we should try and decipher and use genetic evolution to enhance intelligence, so that ordinary people have the chance to enjoy the genius of Galileo or Newton and beyond.
Reply
sacapiloa
9 Comments
really safe?
your statement that these therapies are safe for everybody is not valid for a couple reasons. u imply that what works for the athletes will work for everybody, thats not necessarily true. u also imply that we will be able to mimic exactly whats going on in the few naturally occurring cases, and i just dont think anybody knows enough to say that with certainty. plus, there might be side effects that only show up 20 years down the line, and by then its too late.
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SirLanse
71 Comments
Re: What is fair and unfair?
Nice try.
Many of the roid rangers die young. Look at pro wrestlers. Some of these mutants live long, some die young. Some handle one mutation, because of a second. If you mimick one without the other, you die. If it was possible to limit them to adult professionals, maybe (mutant league)
But children (or parents) who want to compete will feel the need to juice. Many of those will still fail to compete and will have their bodies wrecked. Live fast, die young, fame is forever.
2 out of 3 aint good.
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rajnz
25 Comments
Re: What is fair and unfair?
I accept that at our current state of knowledge we do not know enough to exactly mimic what works for some people of extraordinary ability.
My point really is this - evolution has been working for a very long time. During this time of trial and error it has thrown up some examples of mutants (freaks) with exceptional ability, intellectually and physically. Some of these experiments have been successful also by the criteria that they have simultaneously allowed people of exceptional ability to have long and healthy lives. As examples we could have healthy and long-lived scientists and intellectuals of the present and past.
In the physical field, mutants animals with genes that silence myostatin appear to be otherwise healthy - to point out just one example.
Evolution is ongoing. I think we should no longer be content to entrust the future of coming generations, or even ours for that matter, to the blind roll of natures dice and accept that some people will be born with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Cystic fibrosis, or Huntington’s disease, to name just a few. Or that these, or other, genetic defects should not be corrected in people already having it.
Logically it follows that we should decode the genetic code, of which we are still very ignorant, and using natures vast store of experiments do intelligent design of our own to proceed ever more rapidly down the path of evolution.
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