After Salazar began coaching Decker-Slaney, she came back seemingly out of nowhere to make the 96 Olympic Team, was "diagnosed" with exercise induced asthma at the age of 37 (after 20+ years of running), then won a silver medal at the 1997 indoor champs. Shortly thereafter it was announced she blew a T/E ratio test at the 96 trials.
You do the math.
Gamera wrote:
Still, one thing sticks out to me when people point to his article and use it to back their claim that TSH at best restores you to normal,
To clarify...You don't take TSH.
TSH - Thyroid stimulating hormone. It is the hormone that says "I need more thyroid hormone". This is the standard test to determine the underlying level of thyroid hormone.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Gamera: "Basically, Magness claims that having thyroid issues makes training extremely difficult. I haven't heard one whit of evidence that this problem exists for all the people (Rupp, Hall, Begley, etc) who are reputed to use thyroid meds. If it was that difficult, you would think it would be something that would have been brought up more in interviews. Instead, it's more like, "my thyroid was messed up, so I saw this doctor, and now I take medication and it's fine"."
I would like to hear responses to this, other than the response that "NOP athletes don't have the same degree of thyroid disorder as others who have significant problems training", because if the disorder wasn't that significant, there is an equally good argument that they don't need the meds to function normally, and that the "disorder" is simply an effect of training.
I reject your premise. I DO need this medication to function normally, and I was diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroidism just like many of these athletes probably are. It would just be stupid not to treat a medical condition until the symptoms reach your arbitrary definition of being bad enough.
Your statement is close to the equivalent of saying that a runner that is a Type II Diabetic should not take insulin unless they are at risk for having a diabetes related amputation, or are near kidney failure.
But in the case of a hypo runner, they are acting as society generally thinks they should and yet they still have a disease. Type II diabetes is associated with lifestyles that our society considers "bad", so maybe in this case you would be able to attribute more blame to the athlete (although with Type II diabetes in healthy young people, the blame can almost always be attributed to genetic or epigenetic changes from previous generations).
Look at the logical backflips you are making to support your position, and ask yourself if they are the stances that someone on the correct side of this debate would be taking. There are probably some people abusing this medication, but to group the many people who legitimately have a disease in with the few that abuse the medication is wrong. I think we already discussed that the biological passport might be a good solution to catching the few abusers. So there's your solution -- do it! I don't know what more there is to say about this.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Gamera: "Basically, Magness claims that having thyroid issues makes training extremely difficult. I haven't heard one whit of evidence that this problem exists for all the people (Rupp, Hall, Begley, etc) who are reputed to use thyroid meds. If it was that difficult, you would think it would be something that would have been brought up more in interviews. Instead, it's more like, "my thyroid was messed up, so I saw this doctor, and now I take medication and it's fine"."
Magness is dead on. The difference with the elites is that they are:
1) more likely to notice decreases in training ability more quickly than the rest of us because their whole lives are centered on training. Most of us would chalk up the fatigue, slowing times, and injuries to overtraining, aging, and life stresses.
2)Would be more likely to be tested the minute they start fading. The rest of us would likely not go to a doctor until we had a random physical and it was discovered. i went about 4 years before it was caught. Elites aren't going to go that long with a decrease in ability to train before they start ruling out medical issues.
3) As i stated earlier, i suspect the prevalence of hypothyroidism is actually higher than 5% but people are so damn sedentary these days that they wouldn't even notice.
Somebody needs to do a Tanya Harding on rupp, salazar and all the other cheaters. What is the agenda for all these NOP lovers? Personally, I'll smash that punk elf face, then do a tap dance on that sail ear head. Seriously.
Lets be a little clear here. Having Hashimoto's or another significant thyroid gland issue is debilitating.
Taking T4 doesn't actually fix the problem. People with Hashimoto's still tire easily and get sick easily. It's an automimmune condition.
My wife and her sister both have thyroid issues. To think that you could be training at a world class level with Hashimoto's is fairly suspicious of itself.
The whole things smells bad no matter which angle you look at it.
As part of a broader drug regime. As a way of increasing the general metabolism (fat loss). As a way of increasing protein metabolism (muscle development). Or as a way of balancing issues that are a cascade from hgh usage.
There is thick smoke when you have a grouping of elite athletes exhibiting PR's and unusual drug taking behaviors out of the same pool.
I'd love to see WADA completely revamp it's doping rules and allow the healthy use of PEDS. Athletes require them to perform at their absolute best on the world stage. They have been using them for the last 70 years and they will continue to do so. The healthy and safe use of PEDS by world class athletes could change the general populations understanding of the amazing positive benefits of these drugs rather than treating them like addictive opiates.
so why is NOP sending their prized assets to this nobody mr fixit for a prescription???
cos he's playing the doping game
cos hes giving them what they want?
do the math
it stinks
My response to the commentary/discussion on this topic including Steve Magness and Flotrack is posted here:
As this thread dies off, I feel it should do so with some solid anecdotal facts to deter any disinformation.
I reject your premise. I DO need this medication to function normally, and I was diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroidism just like many of these athletes probably are. It would just be stupid not to treat a medical condition until the symptoms reach your arbitrary definition of being bad enough.
Your statement is close to the equivalent of saying that a runner that is a Type II Diabetic should not take insulin unless they are at risk for having a diabetes related amputation, or are near kidney failure.
But in the case of a hypo runner, they are acting as society generally thinks they should and yet they still have a disease. Type II diabetes is associated with lifestyles that our society considers "bad", so maybe in this case you would be able to attribute more blame to the athlete (although with Type II diabetes in healthy young people, the blame can almost always be attributed to genetic or epigenetic changes from previous generations).
Look at the logical backflips you are making to support your position, and ask yourself if they are the stances that someone on the correct side of this debate would be taking. There are probably some people abusing this medication, but to group the many people who legitimately have a disease in with the few that abuse the medication is wrong. I think we already discussed that the biological passport might be a good solution to catching the few abusers. So there's your solution -- do it! I don't know what more there is to say about this.[/quote]
Fair Enough - I think you are missing the point. The point is, this article by Magness says that basically, people who need thyroid meds are not likely to be getting a performance benefit from them - that having a thryoid condition makes training and racing difficult, and presents all kinds of complications, and has to be managed very closely. But this does not seem to be the case with the well-known elites who are taking thyroid meds. You never hear Salazar talking about how difficult it is to coordinate Rupp's workouts around his thyroid levels. I've never heard Hall say he had to back off because of thyroid condition manifestations. Maybe you could add your own take on it, since you have a thyroid condition. Do YOU find it makes training difficult or complicated, and if so, in what ways? Because my feeling is that guys like Rupp are steady as she goes in their training. In fact, I can't think of anybody who is MORE reliable and consistent than Rupp. To restate it, someone like Rupp seems to be the very antithesis of the thyroid-troubled athlete described by Magness.
Gamera wrote:
Fair Enough - I think you are missing the point. The point is, this article by Magness says that basically, people who need thyroid meds are not likely to be getting a performance benefit from them - that having a thryoid condition makes training and racing difficult, and presents all kinds of complications, and has to be managed very closely. But this does not seem to be the case with the well-known elites who are taking thyroid meds. You never hear Salazar talking about how difficult it is to coordinate Rupp's workouts around his thyroid levels. I've never heard Hall say he had to back off because of thyroid condition manifestations. Maybe you could add your own take on it, since you have a thyroid condition. Do YOU find it makes training difficult or complicated, and if so, in what ways? Because my feeling is that guys like Rupp are steady as she goes in their training. In fact, I can't think of anybody who is MORE reliable and consistent than Rupp. To restate it, someone like Rupp seems to be the very antithesis of the thyroid-troubled athlete described by Magness.
It's entirely possible that Rupp is misusing thyroid meds, and if he is, screw him because he's giving everyone else who actually has the disease a bad name. I'd want him caught just as much as any of you.
But it is also possible that he has the early stages of Hashimoto's Disease, and he just happened to diagnose it sooner because he is more in tune with his body, his livelihood depends on performing, and he has access to better/ more up to date medicine. If he does have Hashimoto's, things are going to get progressively tougher for him but again, with better access to medicine and more regular blood checks he can manage his disease better than the rest of us. For me, I was very consistent in high school, but things slowly fell apart for me in college. I didn't get diagnosed until after I had quit, and I haven't run since.
Real medical doctors comments from the Wall Street Journal Article. They even sign their name!
As a retired pediatrician, I was trained to think for the long haul, to encourage behaviors that get you safely into old age. Elite athletes routinely do things that will make old age a living hell: the abuse their bodies beyond belief for short term gain, either financial or emotional.
When you give the body extra thyroid hormone, the body automatically decreases its own production, hoping to keep your levels "normal." If you override that with way too much synthetic thyroid, you WILL feel pumped up, but it is not a pleasant feeling. It is like having the idle on your car set way too high. It might improve your time off the blocks, but it might also induce a fatal heart rhythm.
Athletes are always looking for an edge and there are always people willing to sell them something to do that. Indeed the term "elite athlete" is sometimes a patient with a problem: a person in denial about what is appropriate for the human body. They are enabled by people who share their view of higher, faster, longer.
Want the evidence? Go look at retired professional athletes debilitated by arthritis. I know one orthopedist who waves to runners on his way to the office and says to himself, "See you for new knees and hips."
Indeed, the most physically fit man I know, a life-long clean living, daily exerciser ended up with two new hips and two knees in his 60's.
Exercise and athletics are great -- to a point. Beyond that it is abusive to the human body. If God wanted us to run 26 miles, he'd have wild animals chasing us. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go do my cardio (walking/reading on a treadmill) and my weight training (with wimpy weights).
Dixie Swanson MD
Also from the comments section from the WSJ article:
This is a charlatan. The fact that he treats top athletes simply makes him a charlatan who treats top athletes. Of course, in our culture anybody who is a celebrity or treats a celebrity must be really smart, right?
By narrowing the definitions of normal, as is guy does, millions of new "patients" are created who can now be treated. Why? Because just about anyone gets tired at some point in their lives, top athletes included, and by offering a "remedy" for fatigue in a way of a "natural hormone" one can fatten their bank account quite a bit. That's why the so-called “Low T” centers are so profitable, along with holistic quacks, etc.
Masses are both dumb and arrogant, not really knowing anything in the field of medicine but claiming they "know their bodies". They think they know better than traditional medicine and run into the trap of quackery. New Age is truly the age of stupidity, as Dennis Prager put it. There must be cosmic justice, however, since most of these people are actually parting with a lot of their money while damaging their bodies.
Michael Duben, M.D. Board Certified endocrinologist
REAL MDs on WSJ:
We've already established that many doctors don't recommend treatment at low levels.
But the fact is that THE PEOPLE THAT TELL DOCTORS WHAT TO DO ARE ARE CURRENTLY DEBATING THE CORRECT RANGE.
The WSJ, and you, are lazy and just asked a few doctors what they recommend rather than delving into the science.
The AACE recommends .3-3.0, the NACB recommends .5-2.5, the Mayo Clinic recommends .05-5.0, my doctor recommends .36-4.20. They're all over the place, and lead to different treatment outcomes.
So we should listen to a doctor who believes marathons are bad and that arthritis is almost guaranteed if you are a runner even though reaearch says that is false??
And as for fams blog and some other comments. If you read Magness writings its pretty clear there is no love lost between him and Nike...
Reading his Armstrong piece, I doubt he'd defend Nike, so if anything there would be bias the other way.
Fair Enough - I notice that a lot of folks like yourself that actually have thyroid conditions are getting up in arms about this debate. But I think the vast majority of posters aren't having a problem with people like you who would be unhealthy without medication, and use medication to restore normal levels and nothing more. It is more a suspicion that people who don't have thyroid conditions at all, or have very questionable claims to thyroid conditions, are using thyroid medications for questionable reasons.
It may be that, if it turns out that there is something going on here, the thyroid medications are not being used for hypothyroidism at all.
fair enough
REAL MDs on WSJ wrote:
Also from the comments section from the WSJ article:
"There must be cosmic justice, however, since most of these people are actually parting with a lot of their money while damaging their bodies."
Michael Duben, M.D. Board Certified endocrinologist
People forget that foreign journalists hounded Lance Armstrong for almost a decade. Aggressively enough so that Lance won at least one libel settlement exceeding a million dollars. Why? Because a journalist's job/passion is sniffing out the truth and gambling on a combination of experience and instinct. Those journalists were never wrong about Lance the duck.
Is the WJ just putting out a feeler? Or is there now a legitimate look into a doctor, a complex PED program, a coach, some athletes, a company, and countless associations with guilty PEDers? I don't think it is hard to find mention of Lance Armstong in that 2003 NOP launch article. Nope.
"Or, more realistically, a Lance Armstrong. The Tour de France champion, who is sponsored by Nike, has given a big boost to its new line of cycling apparel - proving that the company can squeeze profits out of swooshed athletes in less-heralded sports. "If we could come in with another wave of champions," concedes Clarke, "it'd be exciting for anything even related to running as a business."
So Salazar will try anything and is funded for anything. And we shouldn't read between the lines that the goal hasn't been to make Galen the Lance of running? I mean...he's almost there. Imagine this year if Galen bests Mo every outing. Imagine that Galen is suddenly the American above all others. Or was silver not evidence enough of where this all came from and where it was headed...a Lance trail that had dodged every testing bullet and allegation certainly must have made the NOP feel like they were walking on air.
Revisit the article. Follow the trail. A duck?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/nike_pr.htmlIs this thyroid medication really extracted from pigs' thyroid glands? If so I think it would be a epic to run onto the track during the middle of the USATF champs 5,000 meter final wearing a pig custume, and run along side the runners until security tackles me.
Actually, they are made from "porcine thyroid glands." Porcine meaning, Of, related, or resembling swine.
At least as of 2009, there was only one manufacturer in North America of Thyroid Products for use in Human Pharmaceuticals as an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient. A company named American Laboratories, Inc., located in Nebraska.
In 2009, the provided a press release.
http://www.americanlaboratories.com/company_news/Press_Releases/Thyroid_Information.pdf
The interesting comment made is:
"Through the years, the world-wide demand for our Thyroid products, as well as our human nutritional enzyme products has increased dramatically."
Someone with more time than me, please calculate the percentage of hormone use in the US top 10 times for 5000m, 10000m and the marathon.
I'm guessing it's way above the average use in general population.