Can Someone Explain This Science Study To Me - Synthroid(for hypothyroidism) + Altitude = EPO boost ?

You're grasping at straws.

Look at the number of athletes Salazar has coached, HS, college, and post-collegiate, who amazingly are diagnosed with asthma or thyroid problems. It's interesting.

tacomafan wrote:

Look at the number of athletes Salazar has coached, HS, college, and post-collegiate, who amazingly are diagnosed with asthma or thyroid problems. It's interesting.

The idea that someone with asthma can run sub 27 for the 10K, is just ridiculous. I know people that have asthma and they can't even go for a long walk without having problems to breath, specially when there is a change in the weather. Paula Radcliff was another runner with asthma.

no, the point is that the steroids in inhalers for asthma have a synergistic effect with thyroid hormone and some other things. I don't remember the details right now. But thyroid hormone also increases expression of MCT proteins.

Go Afrika wrote:

tacomafan wrote:

Look at the number of athletes Salazar has coached, HS, college, and post-collegiate, who amazingly are diagnosed with asthma or thyroid problems. It's interesting.

The idea that someone with asthma can run sub 27 for the 10K, is just ridiculous. I know people that have asthma and they can't even go for a long walk without having problems to breath, specially when there is a change in the weather. Paula Radcliff was another runner with asthma.

As someone who's had asthma, and competed internationally, I have to tell you that there is no "one" asthma.

Dick Pound previously made a statement about it being heartening that all these asthma suffers can overcome their disabiliites to become Olympic athletes.

Translation - thyroid hormone is intimately connected with metabolic rate and protein synthesis in the body. If you are hyperthyroid (excess or abnormally high thyroid hormone), or make yourself hyperthyroid by taking thyroid hormone when your body is already producing enough of it, your metabolic rate will increase - your heart will beat harder and faster, you will always feel hot, you will have diarrhea, etc - and your baseline oxygen consumption will consequently increase - because your organs are being flogged into working too hard. Not surprisingly, your body will attempt to compensate for this increased oxygen demand by delivering more oxygen to target tissues, and one way it does this is by making more red cells. And it does that by making more epo.

I think it is stupid to try and apply this to sports performance. OK, let's say you make yourself hyperthyroid by ingesting thyroid hormone when you don't really need it. You will flog your body into making more epo and more red cells, but you will also increase your baseline metabolic rate and use up all that oxygen. Sort of like setting the idle on your car really high. Being hyperthyroid will really screw up your body, believe me. After a while you will start to feel fatigued and worn out and feel like crap.

If you want more red cells, eat a healthy diet and consider moving or training at moderate altitude - Flagstaff is nice this time of year. It's a lot safer and even if your performance doesn't improve that much, maybe you will have had a nice summer anyway.

dfasfadsfads wrote:

no, the point is that the steroids in inhalers for asthma have a synergistic effect with thyroid hormone and some other things. I don't remember the details right now. But thyroid hormone also increases expression of MCT proteins.

I know about steroids in inhalers. That is not the point. They just get a drug prescription and abuse the use of steroids using their "ashtma" as an excuse.

a Duck wrote:

A someone who is close to salazar and rupp they are cheating dopers who use facades like thyroid medication to attempt to hide their doping. Only fools believe otherwise

How close? Because I don't think you would make a very good friend or family. Blowing their cover and all.

Is it just me or does Galen Rupp look older than 26? Around his eyes especially, they are wrinkled like a 35 year olds would be.

Steve Ovett had asthma. It was an issue at the end of his career but I believe he did not too bad with it before that.

Didn't Geb have asthma? If he was just making it up to cover up for doping I don't think he would have skipped the Olympic marathon in '08 because of it.

Salazar's athletes aren't going hyperthyroid. What they're doing is adjusting their levels into normal ranges, and I don't doubt that they all tested low.

The ethical problem is that endurance training lowers thyroid function, so in effect these athletes are achieving an unnatural state of normal thyroid hormone levels concomitant with high training volume. It's similar to people with low testosterone doping themselves up to natural levels.

https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=11&ix=h9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=endurance+training+and+thyroid+function

There has been a lot of discussion here about, "fake asthma" a lot of experienced runners, who live in OR, think it is very fishy.

*Why* are there so many more athletes with "asthma" running this fast now?

I know Jim Ryun had it...others? And maybe...JR found out something these others found out too, "I run better when I use my asthma medication".

Azaleas wrote:

Salazar's athletes aren't going hyperthyroid. What they're doing is adjusting their levels into normal ranges, and I don't doubt that they all tested low.

The ethical problem is that endurance training lowers thyroid function, so in effect these athletes are achieving an unnatural state of normal thyroid hormone levels concomitant with high training volume. It's similar to people with low testosterone doping themselves up to natural levels.

https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=11&ix=h9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=endurance+training+and+thyroid+function

This is the real drug issue in sport.

Azaleas wrote:

Salazar's athletes aren't going hyperthyroid. What they're doing is adjusting their levels into normal ranges, and I don't doubt that they all tested low.

The ethical problem is that endurance training lowers thyroid function, so in effect these athletes are achieving an unnatural state of normal thyroid hormone levels concomitant with high training volume. It's similar to people with low testosterone doping themselves up to natural levels.

https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=11&ix=h9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=endurance+training+and+thyroid+function

this seems the most likely. what objective evidence do you have available for these claims?

weldawn wrote:

this seems the most likely. what objective evidence do you have available for these claims?

evidence directly related to Salazar's athlete's, of course.*

Go Afrika wrote:

dfasfadsfads wrote:

no, the point is that the steroids in inhalers for asthma have a synergistic effect with thyroid hormone and some other things. I don't remember the details right now. But thyroid hormone also increases expression of MCT proteins.

I know about steroids in inhalers. That is not the point. They just get a drug prescription and abuse the use of steroids using their "ashtma" as an excuse.

At least for the Olympics, an athlete has to have testing showing asthma. There are specific standards that must be met. I cannot recall if IFs have instituted this for all.

Also, there is asthma and exercise induced--different critters.

As someone who is hypothyroid, I can tell you that taking too much synthroid, no matter how much it might help performance (it's not clear to me that it does), would have an overall negative affect on performance in the long run. You can't sleep and your heart races all the time. It's not pleasant.

I will say that very little research has been done on the thyroid and synthroid in the past 25 years and I would be very interested to know if there is such a thing as an optimal level or elite endurance athletes. The range that is considered "normal" for sedentary people is massively wide so I am sure that that range can be narrowed a lot for professional runners. I know that I feel best when I am all the way to the left of the normal range but if I go too far to the left and become hyperthyroid, I feel like crap.