Does Rupp or the Gouchers take thyroid medication?

Rupp was for sometime. Goucher might've been too for a little while, but I'm not sure if they still are or not.

Just because Rupp wears that thing on his leg doesn't mean he's on thigh 'roids. You guys need to just back off on the allegations.

Rupp is so skinny no way that kids on roids or hormones.

yes they both take thyroid meds.

and so did bob kennedy.... dont go where this is going.

I can tell you that Synthroid, the thyroid medication, is definitely not a performance enhancer if you don't allready have a problem. It is not banned and only brings your body back up to a normal metabolism.

Your thyroid controls your metabolism based on a hormone known as Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH). If a person's TSH level is high then the hormone is constantly released because the thyroid is not working and metabolism is slow (hypothyroid). If the TSH is too low, the thyroid is overworking causing a fast metabolism (hyperthyroid). When Synthroid is taken it is for hypothyroidism. It is basically the stuff that the thyroid puts out to maintain the proper metabolism. If a person is Hyper or Hypo they have symptoms that would decrease performance. If a healthy person took it, they would have decreased performance. The only people who would benefit are those with an impaired thyroid (hypo).

Trust me, I have been on both sides (hypo and hyper) and can tell you that they both suck horribly. This med will not help a healthy person.

On a side note, anyone with some research funds should study hypothyroidism in competetive runners. I definitely think the high training levels could have something to do with it.

First of all, most who get it are female (70-80%). Second, most are older. Of all of the males I know with it that are younger, nearly all are endurance athletes who have high levels of training for long periods. I think a study could conclude that the thyroid is damaged but high level training.

I'd be happy to participate if anyone wants to put it on.

If they were once on it they are still on it. To correct thyroid the pills must be taken for the rest of your life. It does nothing but bring your body back to homeostasis. It can offer a boost in preformance once the medication kicks in because you are finally "normal" after a long time of training with an undiagnosed problem. I recently was diagnosed and it served as an answer to over 6 months of unsuccessful training and racing.

Interesting that so many distance runners, especially ones that share a coach, suddenly have thyroid issues. Reminds me of all the narcoleptic sprinters a few years back.

I'd take a wild stab at it and say that the reason so many runners under the same coach have "thyroid" problems is because they have figured out a way to use the thyroid drugs to mask some other performance enhancer. USATF and USOC need to get their act together and come up with better testing!

If Thyroid meds are performance enhancing drugs then I really suck or I'm getting the wrong meds...

Give me a break. Look at the science. Having too much thyroid hormones makes you feel like absolute crap. Taking thyroid meds won't improve performance for someone who doesn't have a thyroid problem.

Congratulations, you suck at reading comprehension. He said that "they have figured out a way to use the thyroid drugs to mask some other performance enhancer." He wasn't suggesting that the thyroid meds would be directly responsible for performance enhancement.

Disclaimer: I don't actually think thyroid meds are being used for this purpose, but it's not out of the question.

Kele wrote:

"they have figured out a way to use the thyroid drugs to mask some other performance enhancer."

always question everything. you must to discern the truth, always. back when altitude tents became the buzz, Salazar was right on it and Dan Browne was plugged in constantly. he was winning most of the USA champs at the time and getting a lot of press.

at that same time, many runners and coaches were verbally dissaproving of the synthetic manufature of living at altitude. Salazar was obviously a proponent.

Most love Goucher and Rupp is the flavor of the minute. But most people will resoundingly say that something about Salazar just doesn't sit right with them.

Somewhere in a lab Nike and Salz are running all types of physiological and nutritional experiments; we know of mechanical engineering projects like the 'special' treadmill in Aberto's garage.

More smoke wrote:

I'd take a wild stab at it and say that the reason so many runners under the same coach have "thyroid" problems is because they have figured out a way to use the thyroid drugs to mask some other performance enhancer. USATF and USOC need to get their act together and come up with better testing!

Ding, Ding, Ding!

I believe we have a winner.

More smoke wrote:

I'd take a wild stab at it and say that the reason so many runners under the same coach have "thyroid" problems is because they have figured out a way to use the thyroid drugs to mask some other performance enhancer. USATF and USOC need to get their act together and come up with better testing!

Not sure about this, but one famous female sprinter/hurdler used to blab about her thyroid problems - but doctors said the symptoms she would mention didn't match the particular disease she had (Graves). People felt that her thyroid meds helped mask the use of other drugs. Don't know if it's all true, but it was an interesting story.

Her thyroid meds would have been different because she claimed to have HYPERthyroidism. I do not know enough about Graves to really say it wasn't a masking attempt but I believe she did have her thyroid removed. That would be taking it to the extreme if you ask me.

Of course, after it was removed I guess she would have been on Synthroid to get her normal levels up...

Does anyone out there know the chemical makeup of this and how it would look on blood work? Maybe it would look the same or similar to some other agent.

I'm not sure I buy it but who knows today.

I still think that there are far more cases of hypo in runners than the general population. They might just be REALLY unlucky.... or their doc might be treating them for a mid level high TSH level. Most docs would not treat an only slightly high level. They might think of it as an advantage to be at a certain TSH level.

cdavis wrote:

I still think that there are far more cases of hypo in runners than the general population.

This is interesting to me, because I also seem to know a disproportionate number of runners with hypothyroidism (specifically, Hashimoto's).

One possibility is that I simply tend to talk about health/body issues more with runners than nonrunners. Another is that runners are more likely to notice symptoms (e.g., a sudden, unexplained fall-off in performance) and pursue a diagnosis. (Based on various friends' accounts, getting to that diagnosis can take a *lot* of persistence.)

Another is that there's something about distance running that contributes to the development of hypothyroidism (via some sort of wacky immune system response??). If anyone has links to any research on this, I'm guessing there'd be a number of us who'd be interested.

hey cdavis and humbled...

i'm so with you on the want for research in this area. i contributed to a hypothyroid thread a few years ago on this board after being diagnosed hypo and searching for as much info as i could regardind dosing in endurance runners compared with sedendary people. i had the same experience in that it takes a lot of persistence to get diagnosed.

after hearing about goucher, kennedy, rupp i'm more intrigued about the effects of the disease on endurance. all of them had huge drops in performance, were diagnosed, started treatment, but it took them 1-2 years before coming back to their normal times. my hypothesis is that the longer it takes to get diagnosed, the more muscle damage has occurred and the longer it takes to regain the strength. also, you generally start on such a low dose cause docs are afraid to overprescribe. so it takes a few more times of dose increases to get back to feeling good running.

but, look at goucher and kennedy, were either of them able to sustain their training and racing without injury even after taking synthoid? will rupp be able to? i gotta wonder if all the guys who think he's taking synthoid as a mask for other drugs are just going to be ripping on him in a couple of years cause he starts running like crap...but, since he was younger when it was caught as opposed to goucher and kennedy, he may be able to pull it off.

my other question has to do with how it happened. for me and other people i know who have it, it's family history. do all three of these guys have hypothyroidism in their families? or, is it that some of us just weren't designed to train hard and push through stuff and it causes our bodies to rebel?

i've been toying with a study proposal for the past few years (i crunch numbers for a living) but most docs think that the knowledge regarding the effects of hypothyroidsm is already known so there isn't much point in funding any research in the area.

That is an interesting theory about why more runners are diagnosed. Maybe it is due to performance loss. In my case my performance did not get much worse but I did sleep about 12 - 14 hours a day and missed classes. The only thing I did each day at the worst point was go to practice.

I could also see runners as more likely to talk about stuff like that but, of the younger male population it is still a very rare condition. I think I saw like like 20 million Americans have a Thyroid issue and only 20% are male and only 10% of those are under 30. That would make it like... 400,000 males under 30 approximately nation wide. I have heard of and seen many just in my local area.

I really think this could be an interesting thing to look into. Too bad I don't have money.

If I remember correctly, Rupp has some relative who has a thyroid problem.

I'm not sure on Goucher.

In my case, 2 of my grandparents had thyroid problems.

It'd be interesting to see if there was a correlation between running and thyroid problems.

I'm pretty sure, the disorder has to "genetically" be there, but I'd be willing to bet that training/running might accelerate the process and bring about the disorder much earlier in life than it otherwise would.

It's tough to tell though without a study if thyroid problems occur more frequently to runners than normal people. For a normal person, they aren't likely to have the tests that would diagnose the problem. I mean how many people actually ever have those tests done regularly? I'm betting their are a large number of "normal" people who are undiagnosed.

Also, there more likely to shrug off the symptoms or not notice them while an elite athlete is more in tune with their body and know when something is off.