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

Here is how stupid Weldon is.

On his dedicated page on this subject he claims that it doesn't take much web searching to find claims that taking extra thyroid could give you an EPO boost.

AND THEN HE LINKS TO A THREAD ON HIS OWN FRICKIN WEBSITE.

BUT, few posts down from the "claim" that he cites, is a post giving a REQUESTED answer from a medical expert only, on the issue.

And that answer is what I've read other medical types and doctors say:

"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.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4661605#ixzz2Q8OZC7I7

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"

In fact a doctor commenting on the WSJ article says the same thing.

Additionally, I just read a bunch of medical stuff on diagnosing hypothyroidism -- it is a BIG topic and there is a lot out there -- and Dr. Brown is correct -- there is a lot of contradictory research out there.

The bottom line seems to be to take thyroid meds if you don't need them would:

A: yield no athletic advantage.

B: be dangerous and could be fatal. (As the Dutch say.)

Gee, it just might be that WADA knows what they are doing.

A Duck wrote:

Here is how stupid Weldon is.

Ross Tucker from The Science of Sport doesn't agree with you, on Weldon or thyroid meds:

"For a start, the thoughts shared here by Letsrun.com's Weldon Johnson are interesting, well framed and include quotes from inside the sport of athletics. They also discuss why thyroid hormones may benefit performance, as well as safety. I echo these sentiments, and further discussion is certainly required"

and

"However, in principle, I cannot see how the prescription of synthetic thyroid hormones to help athletes cope with training differs from the administration of steroids and blood-manipulating drugs and methods that are already on the list of banned substances and practices."

Why is there so much attention being put on athletes traveling to doctors.

1. There are very few agents for Track and Field and they represent most of the athletes that have competed over the years. When their athletes start having trouble they have a long line of connections in which they send their athletes. If your sole source of income is running than you better believe the top athletes are going to flow to the top doctors.

2. Many doctors just taking the nationalally accepted levels when treating a patient but don't treat the patient individually. If you want to get your illness or other problem fixed you want to be treated as individual as possible to gurantee that the problem is solved.

3. RGIII went and had his knee surgery done by the same doctor that Adrian Peterson used. Why didn't he just go to the doctor in Baltimore. Thats a big city and I am sure there are plenty of doctors that are capable of doing his surgery withing 15 min of the stadium. It is quite simple. That President doesn't go and see any doctor. He will see the best. Same thing with athletes. They are going to seek out the best doctors money can buy and get what the rest of American can't get. And thats individual attention with actual results most of the time.

4. At the same time yes you have doctors that have systematically implemented doping regimens for athletes like the Lance Armstrong situation.

5. Some of you people need to look at it from the athletes angle. This board continues to act like they never would consider taking thyroid medicine but if you were having trouble training and your livlihood was dissapearing are all of you really just going to retire and stop racing? Give me a break!

6. Regarding Galen Rupp's thyroid medicine I haven't had a single person mention how much trouble he had that one season before he got diagnosed with thyroid condition. In a lot of ways this is a pure witch hunt driven by the fact he is having success! Galen's results were subpar for half of a year and in interviews he stated how bad he was feeling, fatigue, and other physical problems that weren't working well. At that point these message boards lit up with the fact that he was overtrained or that he had already peaked. People were writing him off. I feel 100% that Galen had a problem 6-7 years ago and during that time it was acceptable because he wasn't doing well to get the problem fixed and move on. Now this witch hunt is moving forward becauese he is having TOO much success. Maybe he should focus on getting 4th-8th in big races and he wouldn't have this problem.

7. I would also say that Galen is being coached by a guy that would do ANYTHING legal to allow him to win. He is virtually creating the perfect human out of Galen with years of micro managing his body. I would say that he has and will continue to find any way possible to get the smallest margin of improvement out of Galen. He will never test positive because he is that micro managed and everything he is taking would have a medical exemption or it is legal.

STOP the bitching about athletes traveling to the same doctors. That is not the problem. With every disease or disorder there is a specialist. If you can afford it you will go to the best. This is just pathetic!

I have the autoimmune driven hypothyroid, and this has been my experience too. Hypothyroidism ruined my running and taking medication has only allowed me to feel decent during normal daily living activities. Prior to the medication I could barely get out of bed, had bradycardia, hypotension (passed out several times), extreme fatigue, constant upper respiratory infections, debilitating head fog, edema, and constant GI tract issues.

The bulk of those symptoms have subsided, and I feel o.k. on most days. However, despite normal lab values (TSH is usually in the 2.5 to 2.8 range with current dosage), I have not been able to run more than a few miles a day for a few weeks in a row without being flat on my back for days, with dead and painful legs.

For true hypothyroid patients, I do not think supplementing to normal levels is of any performance enhancing benefit, and for me it has not allowed me to be anywhere near my previous normal. I have heard that if I were medicated closer to 1-1.5 I may feel more like I did for the first 32 years of my life, however, I have not find a doctor willing to try that out. It would be interesting to know if any of these athletes have the autoimmune condition and if their TSH levels and therefore, medication dosages change around training load.

Have you looked into getting checked for Lyme Disease? It can throw off your thyroid and cause all of the other problems you are experiencing.On a side note. This is all a bunch of hooplah! Every athlete treats doping like religion. Every body thinks they are clean but comparing one another is apples to oranges with what each athlete is willing to do and still sleep well at night.

The point is this doctor is NOT a top expert. He is viewed derisively by his peers and is a quack. Heck he is hardly a doctor at all, having graduated from a degree mill that changed its name because it almost had its license revoked.

A Duck wrote:

The bottom line seems to be to take thyroid meds if you don't need them would:

A: yield no athletic advantage.

B: be dangerous and could be fatal. (As the Dutch say.)

Gee, it just might be that WADA knows what they are doing.

Hmmm...Not so simple, I'm afraid.

We both agree that evidence suggests that these drugs yield no benefit (and are in fact harmful) if you don't have hypothyroidism. But we both agree that athletes are taking them. So why are so many athletes taking them?

Obviously, it has to be because their thyroid levels are out of whack. We both agree on this.

If you believe that nothing fishy is going on, then you MUST believe that hypothyroidism is naturally more prevalent in the population of elite distance runners. Why do you believe this? If you can't answer that question, then your arguments are all mute.

I don't believe that hypothyroidism is naturally more prevalent in the elite distance runner population. I think the reason that athletes are taking the drug because their thyroid levels are off for unnatural reasons. They are taking other drugs (e.g. HGH) that are messing with their thyroid levels.

A Duck wrote:

Gee, it just might be that WADA knows what they are doing.

See my earlier post (somewhere between 10-20 posts above this) for why WADA won't have banned the drug. It's because when tested in isolation, it does exactly what it's supposed to and offers no performance benefit. The value add of the drug is to counter-act side effects of other drugs. It has no value add without the other drugs. Therefore, there's no reason to ban it.

Here’s a close parallel (not perfect, but good enough): If a government decided to ban guns, they would ban actual firearms. They probably wouldn’t bother banning gun cleaning kits. The gun cleaning kit has no value without the gun. So, if the police walked into someone’s house and saw a gun cleaning kit, they wouldn’t be able to arrest the person.

But, they’d be sure as hell that the person had a gun.

If the top athletes are going to this guy he may have come from a "Doctor Mill" but, along the way he has picked up a few things along the way that makes him unique. Thats like saying ONLY doctors from the top med schools are the only doctors we should ever see. Science is changing everyday and maybe its doctors like this that come up with new theories that will be common practice 15-20 years from now. Who would ever think that a doctor would try something new that could help someone.

ATK wrote:

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%.

Wow, so Rupp and Radcliffe are cheating! How interesting.

Is it because you don't like how they look like by any chance?

So who exactly do you think is not cheating?

To clarify - having had Graves Disease, no - I can't see the benefit of having TOO much hormone. However, I was VERY hyperthyroid when I was first diagnosed. I still question whether a.) these athletes are truly hypothyroid and b.) there isn't some benefit to taking small doses of synthroid, et al., as long as the hormone levels aren't too high. I have heard for years of people without thyroid problems asking their doctors for low doses of synthroid so they can lose weight. It is a metabolism booster, apparently.

Remember, those of us being treated for hyper or hypothyroidism have a medical problem. It's not just that we feel tired - that's one symptom of many of our disease. We are sick, and if our disorder is left untreated, we can suffer life-threatening issues. HYPOthyroidism causes more than just fatigue. One can have dry skin, hair loss, low tolerance to cold temps, constipation, weight gain, depression, swelling in the joints, etc. A goiter (enlarged thyroid gland) is often present - I had one. Did any of these athletes suffer from these symptoms, too? Do any have a goiter?

I find it interesting that these athletes levels only seem to dip to within the lower end of what most doctors (not this Houston Dr.) consider the normal range. These runners never seem to go off the chart low, like an autoimmune sufferer would. Also - the symptoms of thyroid problems, both hypo and hyper, can be indicative of many other medical disorders. That is why many thyroid problems go undiagnosed for months. I wonder if any runner has gone to this doctor suffering from over fatigue, and he DIDN'T diagnose him or her with hypothyroidism?

And on a side note - doesn't this Doctor look like a Who from Whoville?

Doesn't matter to me if hard training can throw off the thyroid; they shouldn't be taking thyroid meds. Survival of the fittest. Those of us that can withstand hard training without getting injured, hypothyroid, etc. will be better than those who can't. Survival of the fittest is what sports is about at its most basic level; people who cannot train heavily without becoming hypothyroid are clearly not the fittest.

I don't know about you guys but I woke up this morning and my thyroids are fück1ng killing me. Struggling to walk and it hurts to sit down. OW!

"RGIII went and had his knee surgery done by the same doctor that Adrian Peterson used. Why didn't he just go to the doctor in Baltimore. Thats a big city and I am sure there are plenty of doctors that are capable of doing his surgery withing 15 min of the stadium. It is quite simple. That President doesn't go and see any doctor. He will see the best. Same thing with athletes. They are going to seek out the best doctors money can buy and get what the rest of American can't get. And thats individual attention with actual results most of the time."

Dr Andrews was a highly respected orthopedist (he took a hit for not stepping in when most anyone could tell Griffin was injured). I've asked the orthopedists at my hospital, and they all say he's an internationally known authority, great skill, etc. No controversy there.

In this case, you are talking about an endocrinologist that offers boutique services to people, at least one of whom says he was evaluated by another endocrinologist who found no issue. Big difference. No orthopedist argued that Peterson or Griffin didn't need surgery-- it was just a question of who did it. Here, there is a real question if most specialists would even agree with the diagnosis, or the need for treatment.

Sure, perhaps he's an expert, and knows more about endocrinology than all the others in his field. I fully recognize that possibility. But, lets at least consider the alternative: he's known as someone who will diagnose hypothyroidism when others can't or won't, and then start treatment. In the infectious diseases world, there is similar behavior around Lyme disease-- including a lab in Palo Alto that can produce a positive test on just about anyone.

Circular logic:

If top athletes are going to him than he must be a top doctor

If he is a top doctor than there is no suspicion for top athletes going to see him

With that stance IRON should be banned for athletes that become anemic. Clearly their body can't handle a heavy training load and genetically aren't gifted enough to compete with the real pro's. People with Asthma shouldn't be aloud to use an inhaler because they don't deserve to compete. People that need orthodics don't have the feet required to be a runner.

addddf wrote:

Doesn't matter to me if hard training can throw off the thyroid; they shouldn't be taking thyroid meds. Survival of the fittest. Those of us that can withstand hard training without getting injured, hypothyroid, etc. will be better than those who can't. Survival of the fittest is what sports is about at its most basic level; people who cannot train heavily without becoming hypothyroid are clearly not the fittest.

Who's Stupid? wrote:

A Duck wrote:

Here is how stupid Weldon is.

Ross Tucker from The Science of Sport doesn't agree with you, on Weldon or thyroid meds:

"For a start, the thoughts shared here by Letsrun.com's Weldon Johnson are interesting, well framed and include quotes from inside the sport of athletics. They also discuss why thyroid hormones may benefit performance, as well as safety. I echo these sentiments, and further discussion is certainly required"

and

"However, in principle, I cannot see how the prescription of synthetic thyroid hormones to help athletes cope with training differs from the administration of steroids and blood-manipulating drugs and methods that are already on the list of banned substances and practices."

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2013/04/the-thyroid-medication-debate-is-it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FcJKs+%28The+Science+of+Sport%29

I like the Science of Sport guys. They really seem to give an unbiased opinions that rely on actual science.

Duck is simply a Nike fan boy who has proven his blind allegiance to anything associated with Salazar or Rupp. He cannot be taken serious on any matter. People like him are why a lot of runners hate Nike.

Nike truly believe that 'Winning Takes Care of Everything'. As long as it is Nike, A Duck is willing to accept it.

If you're prepared to give athletes and edge and call it ethical, you're going to be in business.

If these athletes have a thyroid condition, they should take a LONG break, and be monitored. Not drugged up synthetically and allowed to continue degrading their health with more hard work which is so unhealthy to them.

Also, if they are able to perform as world class athletes, does that say more about the remedy or the ailment? Real patients seems to never be quite themselves anymore. Athletes reach new great highs. Perhaps they were never really ill to begin with, just a free and very useful TUE.

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.

Rumors? Like receiving Actovegin injections from Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt? It's super gray area stuff. Not officially banned, but only because too many people have publicly used it.