This legalizing steroids talk is really troubling. Scares me that people actually think like that.
If the other guy puts crap in his body then I have to as well to be able to compete? What if someone doesn't want to? Then he has to use or be at a disadvantage? Screw that.
An athlete should be able to compete on a level playing field without having to use performance enhancing drugs. I'm glad it's as strict as it is and I hope it gets even more strict.
There is nothing wrong with something that is "performance-enhancing" per se.
What is contentious is any substance that is HARMFUL while enhancing performance short-term.
If some guy doesn't want to eat right, does that mean we should ban eating right? No. Athletes should be expected to do all that they can to train and eat properly. The line should be drawn at where they are being forced to do something that will harm them.
False. Regular exercise does that, that's what the studies show. Excessive exercise has adverse effects because of a higher constant level of stress hormone release throughout adult life. One of the foremost stress experts stresses the point that not enough exercise is bad, but too much can be just as bad (R. Sapolsky).
And the last part about being 'born' with more talent is just ridiculous. Genetic predispositions are nothing without environmental cues, and environmental cues do not need genetic predisposition to effect genetic change. Sure some are advantaged by the environment of their formative years, and that starts the moment mythosis starts.
The net results in allostatic imbalance will happen to anyone no matter their physical development, no matter if their genetic predispositions gives them a lower basal point for stress hormone regulation. Sure it will take more time, but that's the whole point about specifying about excessive exercise, rare are cases were imbalance won't occur in older age. And that's mainly because of the hippocampus regulating glucocorticoid release. The more it intakes glucocorticoids, the more it will shrink, lose memory, and lose it's ability to regulate the activation of the parasympathetic side of the nervous system (the vicious circle I talked about), keeping the body in a higher rate of dosage, continuing the decline of regulation and deterioration of the hippocampus.
Sure there are drug regiments to regulate the allostatic load, but the hippocampus then will get used to a different set of regulation and said person will be stuck on the drug regiment to regulate the nervous system which can cause further imbalance.
That's what the studies show.
People who live to be 100 years old weren't high level professional athletes in their adults years.
EDIT: Here's a quick reference from Robert Sapolsky's Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers:
P.122 (in general reference to higher levels of glucocorticoids) "Males who do extreme amount of exercise, such as professional soccer players and runners who cover 40 to 50 miles a week, have less LHRH, LH (luteinizing hormone), and testosterone in their circulation, smaller testes, less functional sperm. They also have higher levels of glucocorticoids in their bloodstreams, even in the absence of stress."
P.123 "This brings a broader issue important to our era of lookin' good. Obviously, if you don't exercise at all, it is not good for you. Exercise improves your health. And a lot of exercise improves your health a lot. But that doesn't mean insanely large amount of exercise are insanely good for your body. At some point, too much begins to damage various physiological systems. Everything in physiology follows the rule that too much can be as bad as too little. There are optimal points of allostatic balance. For example, while a moderate amount of exercise generally increases bone mass, thirty-year old athletes who run 40 to 50 miles a week can wind up with decalcified bones, decreased bone mass, increased risk of stress fracture and scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine), their skeletons look like those of seventy-year-olds."
Since the effects of high levels of glucocorticoids are wide and varied, I suggest you read the book for yourself. And no, it doesn't help avoiding cancer either. It is actually one of the many catalysts.
Also, with time, too much exercise in one lifetime will tend to tear up blood vessels, reduce elasticity and dilatation and thus create cardiovascular risk. It's simple wear and tear.
You are seriously overrating the quality of medical literature. It's unfortunate, but it's actually very difficult to get conclusions on most subjects, as most medical researchers don't intuitively grasp statistics, and the standards in the field declare two standard deviations (p-value of 0.05) sufficient to declare and assume an effect. Because of those low standards, I can't know that any of the empirical claims you made are reliable.
By contrast, particle physics (the best example of science) requires 5 standard deviations for a discovery and claim, so there are fewer false positives. Moreover it's a real 5-sigma, one that at least attempts to account for various factors in a Bayesian manner.
As an example of Bayesian (correct) vs frequentist (incorrect) thinking, I'll point out that you brought up the fact that the people who live to 100 tend not to be former professional athletes. That is an extremely flawed argument. You cannot compare professional athletes to the mainstream population as they differ in many ways aside from being athletes; there are biases in childhood economic class, adulthood economic class, height, hormone levels during teenage years, diet, gender, nationality, temperament, et cetera. In order to correct for those factors you'd have to compare former professional athletes to a similar population, which is very difficult to do. Thus, you also need a sound theoretical framework.
I also recently found out that they've set up a journal for people to publish null results. I was totally shocked and horrified by this: if medical scientists need a separate journal for null results then that means that null results are harder to publish in mainstream journals, which demonstrates that a huge swath of the field is biased bunk. In a healthy scientific discipline, null results should be as easy to publish as positive results. I myself (not a medical scientist) frequently state null results in my publication, I think it's critical information to share with the community.
ETA: last example. A relative recently went to a doctor for a possible tumor, of the soft tissue in his left arm. He's 35, and he had had (esophageal) cancer at 25. This doctor told him he was unlikely to have a tumor, because he had had another tumor at 25, and it is extremely unlikely for a person to have two different rare cancers in one life. He refused to order two tests... I was shocked and dismayed when I heard this. I can't believe the medical system would let such an intellectual cripple through biology 101 let alone medical school.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kriss E
There's a much bigger difference between all the supplements you mentioned and steroid.
However, I do agree on one notion, steroid use should not be banned, it should be legal. To the same effect as cigarettes or alcohol, or heck, even sugar!
People have this misconceived idea that anybody who takes steroids can become this superman. It's absolutely wrong. It's not because you take steroids that you can become a 7 time your de France winner, or reach the record for home runs in the MLB.
You still have to be extremely gifted to reach those goals.
But we should legalize steroids. If you can't beat them, join them.
I'm not going to go through every ingredient one by one, but I'll say there is a bias in terms of which products are banned and which are not. It's not based on science. As you point out lots of things that increase performance and are bad for you in the long run are banned, such as carb loading. Moreover, a lot of seemingly-innocuous supplements like vitamins are coming under criticism, and may turn out to be bad for you.
I suspect that the push against steroids may have developed in the 1970s and 1980s by the US as a propaganda ploy, to undermine Soviet successes in the Olympics, which were previously considered very impressive. Thirty years later, the East German women's olympic team is synonymous with communist failure.
I think we are in desperate need of more rigorous investigation of some of these drugs, a few may end up being helpful to people.
With all that said, let's not pretend this is all about public health. You can go to any mall and pick up products bursting at the seams with high-fructose corn syrup, genetically-modified gluten, soy lecithin, glycerol, et cetera. DHEA is available over the counter. Doctors are putting countless people on prozac, wellbutrin, statins, and ritalin without so much as a second thought and zero legitimate long-term research to support their actions. A friend of mine almost died due to a blood clot she got, possibly from the birth control pill Yazmin.
You are seriously overrating the quality of medical literature. It's unfortunate, but it's actually very difficult to get conclusions on most subjects, as most medical researchers don't intuitively grasp statistics, and the standards in the field declare two standard deviations (p-value of 0.05) sufficient to declare and assume an effect. Because of those low standards, I can't know that any of the empirical claims you made are reliable.
By contrast, particle physics (the best example of science) requires 5 standard deviations for a discovery and claim, so there are fewer false positives. Moreover it's a real 5-sigma, one that at least attempts to account for various factors in a Bayesian manner.
As an example of Bayesian (correct) vs frequentist (incorrect) thinking, I'll point out that you brought up the fact that the people who live to 100 tend not to be former professional athletes. That is an extremely flawed argument. You cannot compare professional athletes to the mainstream population as they differ in many ways aside from being athletes; there are biases in childhood economic class, adulthood economic class, height, hormone levels during teenage years, diet, gender, nationality, temperament, et cetera. In order to correct for those factors you'd have to compare former professional athletes to a similar population, which is very difficult to do. Thus, you also need a sound theoretical framework.
I also recently found out that they've set up a journal for people to publish null results. I was totally shocked and horrified by this: if medical scientists need a separate journal for null results then that means that null results are harder to publish in mainstream journals, which demonstrates that a huge swath of the field is biased bunk. In a healthy scientific discipline, null results should be as easy to publish as positive results. I myself (not a medical scientist) frequently state null results in my publication, I think it's critical information to share with the community.
ETA: last example. A relative recently went to a doctor for a possible tumor, of the soft tissue in his left arm. He's 35, and he had had (esophageal) cancer at 25. This doctor told him he was unlikely to have a tumor, because he had had another tumor at 25, and it is extremely unlikely for a person to have two different rare cancers in one life. He refused to order two tests... I was shocked and dismayed when I heard this. I can't believe the medical system would let such an intellectual cripple through biology 101 let alone medical school.
I'm not going to go through every ingredient one by one, but I'll say there is a bias in terms of which products are banned and which are not. It's not based on science. As you point out lots of things that increase performance and are bad for you in the long run are banned, such as carb loading. Moreover, a lot of seemingly-innocuous supplements like vitamins are coming under criticism, and may turn out to be bad for you.
I suspect that the push against steroids may have developed in the 1970s and 1980s by the US as a propaganda ploy, to undermine Soviet successes in the Olympics, which were previously considered very impressive. Thirty years later, the East German women's olympic team is synonymous with communist failure.
I think we are in desperate need of more rigorous investigation of some of these drugs, a few may end up being helpful to people.
With all that said, let's not pretend this is all about public health. You can go to any mall and pick up products bursting at the seams with high-fructose corn syrup, genetically-modified gluten, soy lecithin, glycerol, et cetera. DHEA is available over the counter. Doctors are putting countless people on prozac, wellbutrin, statins, and ritalin without so much as a second thought and zero legitimate long-term research to support their actions. A friend of mine almost died due to a blood clot she got, possibly from the birth control pill Yazmin.
So please, spare me the misguided BS from the polyannas who think the authorities only care about protecting the public.
PArticle physics the nest example of Science. Whatever. To diss biological science is ludicrous. Cell are living entities, controlled by over 20000 genes plus their variants. They are inherently variable. This is not the case in particle physics. I would argue particle physics is actually easier to analyze properly but this is a hockey forum. I would switch forums with your biassed view on what is good science.
So please, spare me the misguided BS from the polyannas who think the authorities only care about protecting the public.
Not sure which part of my post made you think I believe they're banned for the public health. That's Bs I agree.
The ban started because their use in competitive sports was viewed as cheating and they wanted to put an end to that.
The side effects of steroids is way overblown. Most of them are reversible once usage stops, and others only kick in if you already have a predisposed issue (like say depression or hair loss) or if you abuse of them.
I recently watched the espn 30 for 30 about Ben Johnson, and it pretty much confirmed what I always thought. So many people are already on them (if they were back then, I can only imagine how the number increased over the years).
A lot of them take them because they know others are on them, and there's no way they'll beat their opponents. Now, one could believe that banning them would have been the right move, and it would stop athletes from using them, however we know that this isn't true and they remain omnipresent in competitive sports.
So, knowing that the ban failed, they should legalize them and make it a controllable substance.
We know the side effects are overblown and aren't any worse than plenty of legal substances.
