Wall St Journal looks at Houston Doc who treats Rupp, other thyroid users

US track fan wrote:

I said in the US, you hump. And it is a large number of them. People arn't lying to you. You are basically asking for proof for things your brain probably already know are true. Its called the lawyer defense. OJ used it to stay out of jail.

You're insane.

Anyway you slice it it is not a large number.

There's lies, damned lies, and statistics.

dd wrote:

"F*xking with that and risking needing to take a medication that could make you feel like crp for the rest of your life???

Not worth it."

The athletes don't agree with you:

"There’s a well-known survey in sports, known as the Goldman Dilemma. For it, a researcher, Bob Goldman, began asking elite athletes in the 1980s whether they would take a drug that guaranteed them a gold medal but would also kill them within five years. More than half of the athletes said yes. When he repeated the survey biannually for the next decade, the results were always the same. About half of the athletes were quite ready to take the bargain."

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/phys-ed-will-olympic-athletes-dope-if-they-know-it-might-kill-them/

bla bla bla.

I am saying as a warning to idiots who might read this board and want to try it...it is too dangerous.

Really, read this board, some irresponsible idiots sit there and write a post speculating on how to abuse the drug.

Totally f*xking baking sht up.

dd wrote:

"Why does a Seattle Seahawk see an expert in Florida?"

Perhaps to see the clinic that gave Arod his drugs...

Seriously, you use "the NFL guys do it" as a way to argue that it's not at all suspicious??? Wow.

Lol, that is a good answer.

So reply to the cancer patient from Indiana, getting his chemo in Seattle?

Geez, people have been flying across country to see renowned doctors for...50 years or more.

Mayo Clinic anyone?

And the Seahawk player flies to Florida, for ADD medication, everyone knows that.

--Actually, the NFL guys fly around mostly for orthopedist.

But, people have been flying around the country to see specialist for a long time, it is not unusual at all.

People in Kentucky ride buses to Florida to get prescriptions for oxy too.

Cancer pt going to Seattle: or with life-threatening disease going to be treated at Fred Hutchinson cancer center, a center that the vast majority of physicians recognize as a leader in the field.

Elite runner with normal labs (in Smyth's case) going to this guy: healthy person going to a physician espousing treatment that most in his field think is excessive.

Hopefully most were unlike Smyth, and actually had labs that showed true hypothyroidism. They could release them, if they wanted to put this to rest.

Is this news? He's been living in Utah and just racing casually for some time, most recently winning the Canyonlands Half Marathon in a 1:09.

Doop wrote:

The biggest news thus far is that Patrick Smyth has retired.

A Duck wrote:

bla bla bla.

Totally f*xking baking sht up.

Settle down Steve, time for nite nites I think.

There are other papers beside the small and short-term overtraining study you discussed. I encourage you to look at these as well.

Transient effects of high level endurance training and over-reaching / overtraining are different issues:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22450344

http://www.nel.edu/26-2005_6_pdf/NEL260605A14_Ciloglu.pdf

I think it is safe to say it is quite right to complain, as thyroid hormone influences quite a bit including those genes influencing type 1 skeletal muscle, EPO levels and more.

just sayin wrote:

where's Aduck since the story broke?

NOP bunker?

crisis meeting with salazar?

You really just post before reading, don't you?

As a former duck, I'm appalled at the use of medications by these runners. I have not even taken a course of antibiotics for over 15 years. I've had about three Tylenol tablets for earaches in about the same amount of time. I don't take any medicines or vitamins. I'm pushing 50, never get sick, exercise everyday, eat well, and feel great. Medical exceptions, hormones, and doctors are going to ruin the health of these young runners. Fast times don't mean anything if they ruin your health and reduce your lifespan. Plus, the use of these legal (for now) drugs is ruining their reputations. Once you have lost your health and your reputation, you don't have much left!

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.

oh brother wrote:

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...

...It is because they need to take this legal drug to counteract the negative side effects of other drugs.

So it's basically the equivalent of taking hCG after a steroid cycle?

And Lance going from Austin to a cancer doc in Indianapolis.

But seriously, the NOPers are quack shopping. They are not trying to save their lives, they are searching for any way possible to get NOPed up.

rojo wrote:

Moneyrun wrote:

I am sick to death of this cheating. Rupp and Radcliffe and Salazar make me want to puke. They know, and anybody who is not delusional knows, that what they are doing is cheating.

Radcliffe? I have a bad memory but has there ever been a rumor of her being on anything? Everyone knows about the asthma and thyroid stuff of Rupp as Salazar hasn't hid that, but I've never heard anything about Radcliffe other than "She ran so much faster than everyone else."

Please explain what you are talking about.

Rupp and Radcliffe have totally different career paths in my mind. Radcliffe was always a huge prodigy - a world junior champion. She won two world half titles and a world xc title before her marathon debut. She was a 30:01 performer before moving to the marathon.

Yes, there have been many rumors of Radcliffe using. I am surprised at your always strong denial that Radcliffe is probably or even possibly guilty. By your logic, Rupp can't be questionable either, because he has a much stronger junior record than Radcliffe. If I had to choose between the two of who is more likely to be a cheater, then Radcliffe wins. And I would put the probability that Rupp is cheating at well over 99%.

Personally, hypothyroidism destroyed my running career. This is a real problem that affects the entire population, elite athletes included. Whether or not there is a higher incidence in elite athletes due to overtraining is still an open question, but past posters have certainly outlined a mechanism in the Fahey textbook*. The study used to refute that mechanism only looked at athletes over a month of training, which isn't really enough to simulate years of high mileage and the resulting physiological changes. Hypothyroidism is also associated with chronic stress and anemia, both of which elite runners are prone to. This is still an area of academic debate if you actually look at the literature, which is probably why the WADA hasn't regulated the substance.

I crashed after a long season of 100+ mile weeks, and never recovered. I don't run anymore, but I still have to take daily levothyroxine to keep my TSH levels in the normal range. This suggests that the changes, whether genetic, environmental or due to overtraining (or a combination of each) are permanent.

The incidence of clinical and sub-clinical hypothyroidism in the population is 5%. Yes, this number is heavily weighted towards old women, but hypothyroidism still does occur in young people like myself. It is entirely possible that Salazar has a few athletes with either clinical or subclinical levels.

There has been little discussion in this thread about the difference between T3 and T4 supplementation. T4 is converted into the active T3 form by the body, so regardless of how much T4 you take, your body will have the optimal and fair amount of T3 through natural conversion. T3 supplementation is a different story, but it is much harder to get a prescription for that given that there are significant health risks. It is not clear which prescription the implicated athletes have, but I would guess it's T4.

Finally, the ranges for clinical and subclinical diagnosis are based on population averages, but there is significant variation between individuals. So really, hypothyroidism should be diagnosed based on a deviation from an individual's normal levels of T3, T4 and TSH. Unfortunately, most people do not have a baseline established so they must be treated according to the population norms. This could result in a person that actually has a very large deviation from their personal norm being denied treatment because they are still within the population norm. The process for diagnosis needs to be reformed, and should be based more on symptoms(lethargy, edema, weight gain, depression, racing thoughts, slow speech, coldness, hair loss, oversleeping, joint/muscle pain) than on established ranges.

Honestly, I think the WSJ authors didn't do their homework and wrote a biased piece of trash.

* Brooks GA, Fahey TD, White TP 1996 Neural-endocrine

control of metabolism. In: Exercise physiology: human

bioenergetics and its application, 2nd edition, Mayfield

Publishing, Toronto; pp, 56-196.

What was biased about the WSJ story? It seemed pretty straightforward.

ATK wrote:

What was biased about the WSJ story? It seemed pretty straightforward.

They either didn't know, or chose not to consider everything that I just wrote.

Coach Cookie wrote:

Looks like professional triathalon athletes too...

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2013/04/news/matt-chrabot-heads-to-auckland-with-new-confidence_73210

Wouldn't they be athaletes?