Posted on 04/30/2008 3:46:29 PM PDT by neverdem
The 55 men in a drug doping study in Sweden were normal and healthy. And all agreed, for the sake of science, to be injected with testosterone and then undergo the standard urine test to screen for doping with the hormone.
The results were unambiguous: the test worked for most of the men, showing that they had taken the drug. But 17 of the men tested negative. Their urine seemed fine, with no excess testosterone even though the men clearly had taken the drug.
It was, researchers say, a striking demonstration of a genetic discovery. Those 17 men can build muscles with testosterone, they respond normally to the hormone, but they are missing both copies of a gene used to convert the testosterone into a form that dissolves in urine. The result is that they may be able to take testosterone with impunity.
The gene deletion is especially common in Asian men, notes Jenny Jakobsson Schulze, a molecular geneticist at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. Dr. Schulze is the first author of the testosterone study, published recently in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
Dr. Schulze learned from an earlier study that about two-thirds of Asian men are missing both copies of the gene, as are nearly 10 percent of Caucasians. The prevalence in other groups is not known.
Doping researchers said the study raised questions about what to do next.
“It’s disturbing,” said Dr. Don Catlin, the chief executive of Anti-Doping Research, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles. “Basically, you have a license to cheat.”
Should athletes give DNA samples for scientists to analyze as genes like the testosterone-metabolizing one are found to be important? Or would another approach, the so-called athlete’s passport, be sufficient? The passport, favored by the World Anti-Doping Agency, is a record of...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Balco eat your heart out...
New genes for osteoporosis may help guide treatment
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
I still think it would just be more fun to let athletes dope up and compete then see who can do the best.
Not to make light of your son’s condition, but I would have had some serous mental issues had I been in my mom’s uterus with my sister for nine months. I love her but their is only so much a brother can take!
Actually, I think this may have an amusing effects.
“...Breast development in males...”
“...Another side-effect of too much testosterone is difficulty urinating. In the 1950’s Russian weightlifters who used testosterone were said to have required a catheter in order to urinate.”
Thanks for the laugh!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.