BREAKING: Study finds that women runners born with high testosterone levels enjoy a "significant competitive advant

The study itself says that males with high testosterone levels did not perform better than males with low testosterone levels, whereas there were those significant differences among females with different levels. On the other hand, the study cites other studies that show dose response in performance as significant among males and females, young and old. So, what is going on there?

Since the study grouped athletes by tertiles, it doesn't show the level to which performance is improved in females who have tenfold testosterone over normal, like the 800m runners. Presumably, the advantage is considerably more than 2-3%. Notably, the study refers to 400m and 400mH runners as well, having high testosterone levels being beneficial. Were there some outliers there, maybe not natural, in the medals?

It was interesting to see that the study offers evidence that androgens also have EPO-like (erythropoetic) properties and that they were used for the same purpose as EPO before the latter was developed.

The data are the data, and they are pretty comprehensive in terms of T levels.

I'm not even looking at their conclusions, just the data.

I've already made up my mind (as has everyone except you and CAS) as to the effect of T on performance.

Go ask 90s era biker how they felt after a little T-boost.

Back to consent .

Just don't believe IAAF .

What % of athletes did consent and did not . Surely the self selected non concenters must have shifted the results ; but nothing mentioned about this group .

The athletes have to opt into agreement ; we all know how this would cause a different result from having to opt out .

I do not know one athlete who has agreed to research.

The figures just do not stand any examination.

Asking to believe iaaf is like asking to believe they did not take bungs to squash drug positives .

virtually everyone was doped up at Daegu and Moscow

Except for the Russians who finished poorly behind Western so-called "non"-dopers, but were banned anyway by McLaren.

Birmingham wrote:

Back to consent .

.

There were few-to-none.

"Of the 855 female athletes, a single blood sample was obtained from 849 women from 163 countries. "

"Athletes were required to go to the doping-control station at any time during their stay, provided it was at least 24 hours after their arrival in Daegu and no less than 2 hours after intense exercise. " (bold mine)

"....these World Championships' athletes were asked to sign an acknowledgment and agreement form by which they agreed to be bound and in compliance with the antidoping rules and by which they consented to the processing of their personal information for antidoping purposes (13) and processing of pooled and anonymous information for antidoping research purpose. " (bold mine}

^^Few to none who were not sampled and did not consent is what I meant.

They were forced to give consent .

Consent has to be freely given and must be informed and explicit .

Thus breach of medical ethics .

The note provided by dsfg says that the research was for anti doping; this is hardly enough info to inform what anti doping research .

But if IAAF overcome that hurdle then how on earth can it deal with the research in question being for natural levels of T ?

Thus the research fails to meet even the wrong ethical criteria as set out by IAAF .

I would also repeat the consent was FORCED.

It is ok for the IAAF to cheat when it suits them , is it ?

It was NOT FORCED.

Any of then could have said...No Thanks.

Competing in elite athletics is not a birthright and you may be required to follow certain rules and regulations.

They where told it was a condition if taking part and they where told to turn up at a pre determined place and not to have trained for two hours .

Refusal would have seen them out of the champs .

Thus forced under duress .

And can't give such an open ended consent as has to be informed.

And most of the " participants " did not speak the language of the form so even if consent was not forced it was not informed .

I took all this from a detailed interview with athletes on their return .

You can't be forced to give up your rights because you are an athlete even though the rules may suggest you have to .But in this instance the relevant IST says you can't .

In all regards the ethical rules for research supersede athletic ones .

I bet the researchers had no idea the duress that consent was obtained .

Common sense says that there is a difference as a whole between male athletes and female athletes of similar age, with similar levels of training, etc. That's why there are separate women's and men's categories. The male/female categories are not there as social categories - like black/white segregated baseball during the Negro League era. They are there because there really are objective differences in the athletic potential of men in general and women in general. Without the categories, almost no women athletes would have an opportunity to compete because men of a comparable age and ability would take up all of the available spots.

Once you have two or more categories, you have to have a rule that separates the categories. It's no different than a weight category in wrestling, age categories (U20, etc.). The rule dividing categories may not be perfect in every situation and there may be close cases, but if you have more than one category you still have to have an objective rule that establishes a bright line.

With the male/female category, T levels aren't perfect, but neither is a chromosome test, looking at external anatomy, or any of the other methods previously used. But T levels are objective and measurable, and they just need to be set at a suitable level for dividing the male/female categories and everyone needs to move on from this issue.

Well, all I can tell you is that you should move on because you are barking up the wrong tree. How many other groups (military people lets say) have been "asked" to consent to various studies of samples they provide? Your definition of duress is simply not really duress. Maybe some academic bioethicist in some ivory tower somewhere has espoused such, but nobody based in reality could conclude this was "duress".

I'll agree to disagree with you assertions in addition to concluding that even if they were valid, they do nothing to invalidate the data.

The data, I will remind everyone, indicates the DSD sufferers studied (admittedly few, though far more than would be expected by chance in a population of 850), had T levels far in excess of that found in normal ELITE female athletes without a DSD.

No further questions, your honor.

Informed and explicit consent ; no .

You have to give permission for blood and viewed tests for the purpose of research otherwise you can't compete , think that is duress .Do you know of any other human research done on this basis ?

If they enforce against hyperandrogenism in women's sports, half of the historical records or more would have to be removed from the books. Ultimately the true test should be if a person was born with male genitals or not. Agree with it or not, that was the historical standard, and should remain the standard.

Every cell in caster’s body contains a Y chromosome, resulting in an incomplete MALE phenotype. Caster has undescended TESTES, not ovaries.

hyperandrogenism is the definition of elite women's sports.

duh.

and it's also the definition of elite male's sport

it's all about freaks of nature,

or PEDs