oh brother wrote:
Wow, most of you guys are dumb. PLEASE read this whole post – it took me a while to write. I’m convinced I’ve arrived at the right answer.
We know three things for certain:
1) You don’t want to have hyper- or hypothyroidism, as both negatively affect running performance
2) To balance your thyroid hormones, you can take drugs
3) Many elite distance runners take these drugs (a percentage that far exceeds that of the general population)
Forget everything else (e.g. who the prescribing doctor is). These three things are the only things that matter.
OK. Based on the three facts above, there are ONLY 5 scenarios for why an abnormally high number of elite distance runners take these drugs:
1) Thyroid medication is a performance enhancing drug
2) The occurrence of thyroid imbalances is more frequent in elite distance runners for legitimate reasons (e.g. training intensity, genetics). These drugs are used as directed to treat the condition they are prescribed for
3) There is a performance benefit from taking these drugs that outweighs the negative effects of throwing off thyroid levels (e.g. weight-loss)
4) The drug masks the presence of banned substances
5) MOST LIKELY: The drugs are needed to rebalance hormone levels that have been thrown off because of non-natural reasons
There are no other scenarios other than these five. No athlete is choosing to manipulate his or her hormones for a reason other than these, because any other scenario would be odds with the three facts stated at the beginning of this post (i.e. no one would mess with their thyroid “just of the hell of it”)
What would you have to believe in order to accept each of the four scenarios above:
1) Thyroid medication is a performance enhancing drug
REJECT: Multiple posters have used this drug and testified that it does not improve performance beyond returning levels to normal. Swinging too far in either direction does not aid performance
2) Elite distance runners have higher thyroid levels for legitimate reasons.
REJECT: While thyroid problems are significantly more frequent with elite athletes than with average joes, AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of elite athletes do not have this problem. One can’t defend the causality of genetics or training because MOST athletes are fine without it. I’ve never heard someone say, “I’ve got to hang up my spikes…this hard training is messing with my thyroid levels too much”. (Note: this is the second most likely scenario – but a very distant second)
3) There is a performance benefit from taking these drugs that outweighs the negative effects of throwing off thyroid levels
REJECT: As many previous posters have testified, having thyroid levels that are out of whack is severely detrimental to performance. People have also testified from using the drug that the only benefit came from returning levels to normal. In other words, there are no other benefits. If athletes are only using it intermittently to lose weight, well…then that’s not how the drug was prescribed so they’re cheating anyway
4) Drug masks the presence of other drugs
REJECT: This is something that the IAAF and WADA can test for. If they really have been looking at it for seven years, and it really was a masking agent, these bodies would at least require a TUE. Since they do not, one can reasonably assume that the drug is not a masking agent (I’m speaking in terms of traditional masking agent…not regulating bio passport, which it would in fact help with)
5) The drugs are needed to rebalance hormone levels that have been thrown off because of non-natural reasons.
ACCEPT: This is by FAR the best conclusion. Athletes must be taking the drugs for some reason. We know they’re not manipulating their levels for the hell of it, and since we’ve rejected the first four scenarios, this MUST be the reason.
Supporting evidence:
WADA and the IAAF haven’t banned the drug. This means they believe that alone it’s not a PED or a masking agent. In this post, I’ve rejected the potential belief that the elite distance runner population isn’t uniquely exposed to this condition naturally (evidenced by most elite runners being fine). But why do people still take it!? It must be because other drugs unnaturally throw off thyroid levels, and this drug is needed to rebalance that level (the poster “I read something” was describing this). Under this scenario it is true that elite distance runner population has a higher instance of thyroid imbalance – but the reason is not a natural cause.
The reason WADA and the IAAF haven’t banned the drug is because it doesn’t do anything that helps. Of course, when they do their tests, they are testing to see how the drug IN ISOLATION affects performance. Apparently, it is actually detrimental (as many have attested). So, obviously, there are no grounds for banning it, as it only helps in conjunction with other, already banned substances.
So, why are athletes taking the drug that is proven to have no performance benefits? It is because they need to take this legal drug to counteract the negative.