Is this a serious post? Oxycotin easier to get than ventolin?
Inhalers are stimulants and can be abused.
Ever noticed how some of these top athletes look bugged eyed? I wouldnt be surprised to see many, many athletes abusing inhalers.
And i'd agree with Armstrong here, when did people at the top end of endurance sports all the sudden have frequent onsets of asthmatic episodes? Explain how those two things can possibly correlate in the long run?
All the people i know and knew who were asthmatic were not/are not runners, and were constantly triggered by the slightest stress on the cardiovascular system.
Now there might be a lot of 'misdiagnosing' here, but just like thyroid meds, some of this is just plain ol training stress, not something requiring pharma intervention
Yuup, serious post. Are you happy with over 110,000 deaths from Oxi in 2023, that's just USA, and just the people that died, that doesn't include those who abuse but have not (yet) died. It's not so hard to buy this stuff on the street, or talk an unscrupulous doctor or pharmacist into getting some. I've yet to hear of someone on the street or at a party saying "Psst, hey, ya wanna buy some ventolin, chix dig it.". That being said in Jr High we did have some nutbars who would strong arm inhalers from the resident wheezer and dare each other to puff until they passed out, but they definitely weren't on the track team. btw, opiates and painkillers are also abused by athletes to allow them to train harder or race without distraction of pain.
As for inhalers being abused, like any med, there's no doubt someone is taking a dosge beyond the prescribed limit, but will it help? According to the BMJ, there is no pulmonary limitation to aerobic performance, because when humans are exercising at the VO2 Max threshold (about 3k race pace) they can still breath much faster and inhale much more air then their body can use, it's easy, give it a try, just don't hyperventolate till you pass out. The limiting factor is cardiac output and muscle/mito efficiency, not how much air you breath. Maybe you have evidence inhalers are providing some other benefit? If so talk to WADA, not me, they allow most all asthma inhalers. Note that many of the same drugs in inhalers are NOT allowed as injectables, without a TUE, because they can result in systemic effects and the half life is about 5-10 times longer, and the effective systemic dosage is much much higher. That's the route Wiggins went, very suspicious because you would normally have to be carted off to ER in an ambulance before being prescribed an injection or high power steroids.
When did top athletes start having all this asthma? Good question, multiple reasons: part of the answer is that worldwide, rates in asthma have been soaring since1980s, no one knows exactly why. As for athletes having it more often, this is partly explained by the fact that until 1970s, and later 1990s, really effective treatment did not exist, and those that could have been successful athletes simply opted out. Ventolin really wasn't mainstream until 1970s, and became highly "abused" in the 1990s so, sorry Armstrong, that's not new. By abused, i mean they didn't initially didn't have to prove they had asthma, but now they require proof from spirometry testing. Like TUEs for thyroid meds or low T, that proof can be faked, and so can pissing into a cup with someone else's urine. Allergy based asthma is what the majority of most kids suffer from and was by far the most common asthma type, in adults, there are now over a dozen asthma phenotypes identified that require a perfect storm of environmental and epigenetic changes to trigger it and now we have new drugs invented that act as preventatives (not broncho dilators) allowing more people to safely get into athletics, so that's another reason why there's an increase of athletes with asthma. I'm only guessing, but training has changed a lot since 1990s, especially in cycling - a lot more high altitude training, which is a trigger, a lot more training volume, a lot more air pollution exposure, another trigger, the "Too clean hypothosis" - asthma is much lower in Amish and other farming communities because they are exposed to less clean environments as kids allowing their bodies to learn to adapt (this has somewhat been debunked or re-phrased), a lot more microplastics and forever chemicals in our body acting as hormone disrupters and immune system influencers. It's not just runners/cyclists, Hockey players are also prone to asthma due to the colder ice rink air coupled with stale air and exhaust fumes from zamboni's and other equipment. A lot more strains of viruses than years ago, we know elite athletes are often one bad sleep away from illness. During the H1N1 outbreak years ago, some patients with no family history of asthma never lost their wheezing/phlegm after recovery and became asthmatic. Here's some other comments on why:
Is this a serious post? Oxycotin easier to get than ventolin?
Inhalers are stimulants and can be abused.
Ever noticed how some of these top athletes look bugged eyed? I wouldnt be surprised to see many, many athletes abusing inhalers.
And i'd agree with Armstrong here, when did people at the top end of endurance sports all the sudden have frequent onsets of asthmatic episodes? Explain how those two things can possibly correlate in the long run?
All the people i know and knew who were asthmatic were not/are not runners, and were constantly triggered by the slightest stress on the cardiovascular system.
Now there might be a lot of 'misdiagnosing' here, but just like thyroid meds, some of this is just plain ol training stress, not something requiring pharma intervention
Yuup, serious post. Are you happy with over 110,000 deaths from Oxi in 2023, that's just USA, and just the people that died, that doesn't include those who abuse but have not (yet) died. It's not so hard to buy this stuff on the street, or talk an unscrupulous doctor or pharmacist into getting some. I've yet to hear of someone on the street or at a party saying "Psst, hey, ya wanna buy some ventolin, chix dig it.". That being said in Jr High we did have some nutbars who would strong arm inhalers from the resident wheezer and dare each other to puff until they passed out, but they definitely weren't on the track team. btw, opiates and painkillers are also abused by athletes to allow them to train harder or race without distraction of pain.
As for inhalers being abused, like any med, there's no doubt someone is taking a dosge beyond the prescribed limit, but will it help? According to the BMJ, there is no pulmonary limitation to aerobic performance, because when humans are exercising at the VO2 Max threshold (about 3k race pace) they can still breath much faster and inhale much more air then their body can use, it's easy, give it a try, just don't hyperventolate till you pass out. The limiting factor is cardiac output and muscle/mito efficiency, not how much air you breath. Maybe you have evidence inhalers are providing some other benefit? If so talk to WADA, not me, they allow most all asthma inhalers. Note that many of the same drugs in inhalers are NOT allowed as injectables, without a TUE, because they can result in systemic effects and the half life is about 5-10 times longer, and the effective systemic dosage is much much higher. That's the route Wiggins went, very suspicious because you would normally have to be carted off to ER in an ambulance before being prescribed an injection or high power steroids.
When did top athletes start having all this asthma? Good question, multiple reasons: part of the answer is that worldwide, rates in asthma have been soaring since1980s, no one knows exactly why. As for athletes having it more often, this is partly explained by the fact that until 1970s, and later 1990s, really effective treatment did not exist, and those that could have been successful athletes simply opted out. Ventolin really wasn't mainstream until 1970s, and became highly "abused" in the 1990s so, sorry Armstrong, that's not new. By abused, i mean they didn't initially didn't have to prove they had asthma, but now they require proof from spirometry testing. Like TUEs for thyroid meds or low T, that proof can be faked, and so can pissing into a cup with someone else's urine. Allergy based asthma is what the majority of most kids suffer from and was by far the most common asthma type, in adults, there are now over a dozen asthma phenotypes identified that require a perfect storm of environmental and epigenetic changes to trigger it and now we have new drugs invented that act as preventatives (not broncho dilators) allowing more people to safely get into athletics, so that's another reason why there's an increase of athletes with asthma. I'm only guessing, but training has changed a lot since 1990s, especially in cycling - a lot more high altitude training, which is a trigger, a lot more training volume, a lot more air pollution exposure, another trigger, the "Too clean hypothosis" - asthma is much lower in Amish and other farming communities because they are exposed to less clean environments as kids allowing their bodies to learn to adapt (this has somewhat been debunked or re-phrased), a lot more microplastics and forever chemicals in our body acting as hormone disrupters and immune system influencers. It's not just runners/cyclists, Hockey players are also prone to asthma due to the colder ice rink air coupled with stale air and exhaust fumes from zamboni's and other equipment. A lot more strains of viruses than years ago, we know elite athletes are often one bad sleep away from illness. During the H1N1 outbreak years ago, some patients with no family history of asthma never lost their wheezing/phlegm after recovery and became asthmatic. Here's some other comments on why:
Is this a serious post? Oxycotin easier to get than ventolin?
Inhalers are stimulants and can be abused.
Ever noticed how some of these top athletes look bugged eyed? I wouldnt be surprised to see many, many athletes abusing inhalers.
And i'd agree with Armstrong here, when did people at the top end of endurance sports all the sudden have frequent onsets of asthmatic episodes? Explain how those two things can possibly correlate in the long run?
All the people i know and knew who were asthmatic were not/are not runners, and were constantly triggered by the slightest stress on the cardiovascular system.
Now there might be a lot of 'misdiagnosing' here, but just like thyroid meds, some of this is just plain ol training stress, not something requiring pharma intervention
Yuup, serious post. Are you happy with over 110,000 deaths from Oxi in 2023, that's just USA, and just the people that died, that doesn't include those who abuse but have not (yet) died. It's not so hard to buy this stuff on the street, or talk an unscrupulous doctor or pharmacist into getting some. I've yet to hear of someone on the street or at a party saying "Psst, hey, ya wanna buy some ventolin, chix dig it.". That being said in Jr High we did have some nutbars who would strong arm inhalers from the resident wheezer and dare each other to puff until they passed out, but they definitely weren't on the track team. btw, opiates and painkillers are also abused by athletes to allow them to train harder or race without distraction of pain.
As for inhalers being abused, like any med, there's no doubt someone is taking a dosge beyond the prescribed limit, but will it help? According to the BMJ, there is no pulmonary limitation to aerobic performance, because when humans are exercising at the VO2 Max threshold (about 3k race pace) they can still breath much faster and inhale much more air then their body can use, it's easy, give it a try, just don't hyperventolate till you pass out. The limiting factor is cardiac output and muscle/mito efficiency, not how much air you breath. Maybe you have evidence inhalers are providing some other benefit? If so talk to WADA, not me, they allow most all asthma inhalers. Note that many of the same drugs in inhalers are NOT allowed as injectables, without a TUE, because they can result in systemic effects and the half life is about 5-10 times longer, and the effective systemic dosage is much much higher. That's the route Wiggins went, very suspicious because you would normally have to be carted off to ER in an ambulance before being prescribed an injection or high power steroids.
When did top athletes start having all this asthma? Good question, multiple reasons: part of the answer is that worldwide, rates in asthma have been soaring since1980s, no one knows exactly why. As for athletes having it more often, this is partly explained by the fact that until 1970s, and later 1990s, really effective treatment did not exist, and those that could have been successful athletes simply opted out. Ventolin really wasn't mainstream until 1970s, and became highly "abused" in the 1990s so, sorry Armstrong, that's not new. By abused, i mean they didn't initially didn't have to prove they had asthma, but now they require proof from spirometry testing. Like TUEs for thyroid meds or low T, that proof can be faked, and so can pissing into a cup with someone else's urine. Allergy based asthma is what the majority of most kids suffer from and was by far the most common asthma type, in adults, there are now over a dozen asthma phenotypes identified that require a perfect storm of environmental and epigenetic changes to trigger it and now we have new drugs invented that act as preventatives (not broncho dilators) allowing more people to safely get into athletics, so that's another reason why there's an increase of athletes with asthma. I'm only guessing, but training has changed a lot since 1990s, especially in cycling - a lot more high altitude training, which is a trigger, a lot more training volume, a lot more air pollution exposure, another trigger, the "Too clean hypothosis" - asthma is much lower in Amish and other farming communities because they are exposed to less clean environments as kids allowing their bodies to learn to adapt (this has somewhat been debunked or re-phrased), a lot more microplastics and forever chemicals in our body acting as hormone disrupters and immune system influencers. It's not just runners/cyclists, Hockey players are also prone to asthma due to the colder ice rink air coupled with stale air and exhaust fumes from zamboni's and other equipment. A lot more strains of viruses than years ago, we know elite athletes are often one bad sleep away from illness. During the H1N1 outbreak years ago, some patients with no family history of asthma never lost their wheezing/phlegm after recovery and became asthmatic. Here's some other comments on why:
Oh, and actual evidence that your claim that Oxys are easier to get than asthma meds, other than pure conjecture.
cops are trying to get those hobby-joggers looking for PRs, thats why local law enforcement are staking out people to pinch in stings of actual controlled substances.
But by all means, im sure you have an anecdote about underground asthma med rings we can entertain
It's kind of interesting that asthma has only become a discernible issue amongst today's athletes. So many elites so sickly. It is easier to get an asthma prescription than many other drugs.
Maybe because about 10 people per day die of asthma in the US, more than 1000/day worldwide. I had a running friend that died of an attack, she was a beautiful and generous person, it was very shocking and sad.
Fortunately death rate is decreasing due to increased use of preventative corticosteroids inhalers (Alvesco, Pulmicort, Flovent etc). Many of these are pro-drugs that only activate when in contact with epithelial tissue, and don't hang around for days like injected triamcinolone (Wiggins flavor du jour) due to having a high first pass kidney clearance, so no, you're not going to get jacked on them. In general you should not have to resort to salbutamol/ventolin if your preventive inhaler is used according to guidelines.
btw - i'd say oxycontin is much easier to get than asthma meds, and overdoses are killing about 44 Americans per day, might be better to rail against that instead of inhaled asthma meds which WADA allows if dosages are to manufacturer spec.
Look man, you can argue with Armstrong about WHO he thinks is cheating etc etc, it’s a little harder to argue WHAT constitutes that cheating
One crazy thing: in decades of following endurance sports, I never saw an athlete having to stop with an asthma attack that required emergency medication.
I have the classic symptoms or Exercised Induced Asthma (EIA), and that was during hard efforts, particularly when it was cold and dry outside, my lungs would start producing a lot of phlegm. In fact, I came to find out that I had it because a team mate heard me wheezing on the run, said he was familiar with it, and suggested I get it checked out. And that's what it was.
I don't have symptoms nearly as bad when its raining or really humid. Also, I found that wearing a mask nips it in the bud.
But additionally, I get symptoms for about the first three hours after a moderate to hard run, in which I cannot take a deep breathe without coughing - so I only take half breaths, and can't even finish much more than a sentence of talking without having to stop.
Inhalers help mitigate all that.
As I said, though, as I've gotten older and slower, this happens a lot less, and I assume because I am not pushing the lungs as hard, being a less powerful runner these days.
I had a teammate with an inhaler who was our best HS miler. He ended up getting around 4:50 if I remember correctly, and I was a 5:25 guy (Sorry to make everyone jealous). However, in training and in the seriousness of our approach, I always felt we should be closer. Maybe the inhaler was the difference between 4:50 and very low 5's which is where I would have placed him. I've always wondered.
I've run very near olympic qualifying times and never used an inhaler or checked to see if I have asthma. Maybe I should get an inhaler to get me that last couple percentage points faster and be an olympian.
Research shows that non-asthmatics don't get a performance boost from using an inhaler. So you'd be puffing in vain for your extra performance percentages. If you have asthma, different story; maybe you should have checked. (But, honestly, if you had it, you'd know.)
One crazy thing: in decades of following endurance sports, I never saw an athlete having to stop with an asthma attack that required emergency medication.
With this rigorous analysis, I guess we can only conclude it never happens, or asthma must not exist.
Or, perhaps (just thinking out loud here), someone with asthma serious enough to potentially require emergency medication during a race is ALSO on medication that prevents the emergencies in the first place.
I've run very near olympic qualifying times and never used an inhaler or checked to see if I have asthma. Maybe I should get an inhaler to get me that last couple percentage points faster and be an olympian.
Research shows that non-asthmatics don't get a performance boost from using an inhaler. So you'd be puffing in vain for your extra performance percentages. If you have asthma, different story; maybe you should have checked. (But, honestly, if you had it, you'd know.)
What research is that exactly?
Heres a test for you: if you know someone with an albuterol inhaler with a spacer, take two puffs before a race (in warmer weather) and then report back.
almost certainly youll be singing a different tune
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