Tuesday 25, Nov 2008
Viagra may join anabolic steroids in WADA’s prohibited list by 2009
Posted Byi steroids
The cat’s out of the bag!
This could be the collective statement of athletes who’ve been getting some help from the diamond-shaped blue pills of Viagra outside the bedroom – i.e. as an anabolic agent. Viagra may be among the prohibited compounds endorsed by anti-doping organizations, principally the World Anti-Doping Agency.
This comes up as a WADA-financed research is nearing culmination. The study, being conducted by the Marywood University in Scranton, PA involved lacrosse players, is aimed at finding out if Viagra provides unfair competitive edge to athletes. If Viagra is proven to be a performance-enhancing drug it can be put on WADA’s banned list on September 2009 at the earliest, five months before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, according to New York Times.
Aside from the Marywood study, several researches have been initiated to pinpoint the exact effects of Viagra on the performance of athletes. More from the New York Times:
Through the decades, athletes have tried everything from strychnine to bulls’ testicles to veterinary steroids in a desperate, and frequently illicit, effort to gain an advantage. Several years ago, word spread that Viagra was being given to dogs at racetracks, said Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, based in Colorado Springs.
Interest in the drug among antidoping experts was further increased by a study conducted at Stanford University and published in 2006 in The Journal of Applied Physiology. The study indicated that some participants taking Viagra improved their performances by nearly 40 percent in 10-kilometer cycling time trials conducted at a simulated altitude of 12,700 feet — a height far above general elite athletic competition. Viagra did not significantly enhance performance at sea level, where blood vessels are fully dilated in healthy athletes.
A 2004 German study of climbers at 17,200 feet at a Mount Everest base camp, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, found that Viagra [cialis] relieved constriction of blood vessels in the lungs and increased maximum exercise capacity.At this point, there is no evidence of widespread use of Viagra by elite athletes, Mr. Tygart said. Yet, because the drug is not prohibited and thus not screened for, there is no way to know precisely how popular it is.
Viagra is the popular trade name of sildefinil citrate which was made commercially available in 1998 in the United States and has become a household name because it’s been found to be effective in treating what used to be a hush-hush condition – erectile dysfunction.
Viagra was originally developed to treat hypertension and angina pectoris, but it has been discovered that it has minimal effects on angina but impressive outcome on penile erections.
In bodybuilding circles, Viagra is popular as a pre-contest drug because it positively affects the release of nitric oxide (NO), the chemical compound that relaxes or widens the smooth muscles, allowing ideal blood flow. This further leads to improved transport of oxygen to muscle cells and increased rate of release of lactic acid, a compound which takes part in the body’s energy production. This results to the so-called pump that many bodybuilders – and athletes – seek because it translates to high endurance.
Tags: 2010 Winter Olympics, anabolic agent, bodybuilding, performance-enhancing drug, sildefinil citrate, steroids, University of Marywood, Viagra, WADA
Posted in Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports, steroid nation | No Comments/Questions
The winner of the 2008 Ironman Pro bodybuilding contest is Phil Heath. Phil Heath is of course another example as to why bodybuilding will never be mainstream, this huge musclepacked monster is what is considered appropriate in bodybuilding today. His shame is not taken into account neither is symmetry, just plain bulk. The bigger you can be, the more anabolic steroids, HGH and IGF-1 you can take, the bigger star you can become. Testosterone shouldn’t make talent!