Nandrolone

Let's make it clear: one "false positive" is one too many. However, having worked on the test I can tell you that first, I don't know where the "1 out of 1000" statistic is coming, but secondly, you are interpreting it wrongly. It would be 1 out of 1000 positive nandrolone tests reported.The sport authorities are investigating if cases that would meet the criteria of "unstable urine" have been reported. That "phenomenon" began in 2002 and has nothing to do with the quality of the testing. Nothing hiden, nothing secret.

oldguy wrote:

For a number of reasons, I've long been suspicious of doping charging based on positive nandrolone tests. The latest news adds fuel to the fire. Although letsrun.com's front page points out that "unstable urine" would only result in, at most, one "false positive" per 1,000 tests, the USA Today article states that, "In 2004, WADA's 33 accredited labs worldwide found traces of nandrolone in about 300 of 170,000 tests. In 2003, they found about 250 in 130,000 tests." Assuming one "false positive" per thousand tests, that suggests that more than half of the positive nandrolone tests may have been "false positives." That's a lot of careers and reputations destroyed by inadequate testing protocols.

19-norandrosterone and 19-noretiocholanolone can occur naturally at levels in excess of the 2ng/ml limit and the concentration can increase by a factor of 4 after exercise. Until 1996 the IOC regarded any level of these metabolites as evidence of doping with nandrolone but later introduced the threshold (although an arbitrary one without scientific foundation). It's quite likely that a number of the observed positives referred to result from endogenous 19-norandrosterone and 19-noretiocholanolone.

Is there any evidence that deliberate doping with exogenous nandrolone is anywhere near the levels reflected in the frequency of positive tests? I have the impression that nandrolone is an unlikely choice for dopers, since detectable quantities of the metabolites remain in the body for a relatively long time, and the anabolic effects of nandrolone aren't significantly greater than what could be achieved with other, less easily detectable steroids.

...Dr Phil?

oldguy wrote:

Is there any evidence that deliberate doping with exogenous nandrolone is anywhere near the levels reflected in the frequency of positive tests? I have the impression that nandrolone is an unlikely choice for dopers, since detectable quantities of the metabolites remain in the body for a relatively long time, and the anabolic effects of nandrolone aren't significantly greater than what could be achieved with other, less easily detectable steroids.

I think that when the spate of nandrolone positives started many of us assumed that this was either endogenous or contamination in supplements (probably both). As you say it's a rather poor choice for anyone who wanted to deliberately cheat and this had been known for a long time, also some of the positive tests came in sports where there would be no performance enhancement reason to take anabolic steroids. Of course at that time the testers had a zero tolerance for nandrolone metabolites and only later introduced a threshold so you can be sure that 'non-dopers' were banned then. I would think that doping with nandrolone is significantly less frequent than suggested by the test results.

In response to Harpo, yes.

Spreading wrong information is not helpful. The threshold was/is based upon observations made in the labs testing athletes' samples. No, the concentration of metabolites is not increased with exercise (when tested in controled environment). Yes,the metabolites are detectable for months after an injection of nandrolone. However, the supplements of norandrostenedione and norandrostenediol, available for oral self-administration until January 2005 in many countries, were producing the same metabolites, detectable during approximately one week. This is the source of many positive findings since 1997, along with results due to supplements containing those steroids without mention on the label.

Phil. wrote:

19-norandrosterone and 19-noretiocholanolone can occur naturally at levels in excess of the 2ng/ml limit and the concentration can increase by a factor of 4 after exercise. Until 1996 the IOC regarded any level of these metabolites as evidence of doping with nandrolone but later introduced the threshold (although an arbitrary one without scientific foundation). It's quite likely that a number of the observed positives referred to result from endogenous 19-norandrosterone and 19-noretiocholanolone.

C. Ayotte wrote:

Spreading wrong information is not helpful. The threshold was/is based upon observations made in the labs testing athletes' samples. No, the concentration of metabolites is not increased with exercise (when tested in controled environment). Yes,the metabolites are detectable for months after an injection of nandrolone. However, the supplements of norandrostenedione and norandrostenediol, available for oral self-administration until January 2005 in many countries, were producing the same metabolites, detectable during approximately one week. This is the source of many positive findings since 1997, along with results due to supplements containing those steroids without mention on the label.

I suggest you do a Google search for the following:

A Brief Review of Nandrolone Doping Control Procedures

By Dr Simon Davis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories

References:

Bjorkeim I, et al., (1982). Journal of Steroid Biochemistry, 17, 447-451.

Debruyckere R, et al., (1990). Proc. Of 4th Symposium On The Analysis of

Steroids, S. Gorog (ed.), 363-367.

Keiman A, et al., (1988). Journal of Pharm Biomed Analysis, 6, 473-483.

Le Bizec B, et al., (1999). J Chromatogr B Biomed Science Applied, 723

(1-2), 157-1572.

Shackleton C, et al., (1997). Steroids, 62, 379-387.

And what is the expertise of Mr. Davis in the field save and except his performance in UK cases (later suspended by international tribunal of IAAF)?

Shackleton's article is dealing with IRMS analysis of testosterone and precursors; not with norandrosterone.

Bjorkeim's article, dating from 1982 and Debruyckere et al., describe findings due to ingestion of meat contaminated with steroids.

That specific Le Bizec paper described an absolute increase of 4 times of a peak - not the level of NA. That could never be confirmed.

I suggest you consult WADA's technical document TD2004NA "reporting norandrosterone findings" for an indept review of literature (wada-ama.org)

You can also read:

N. Schmitt et al., "Nandrolone excretion is not increased by exhaustive exercise in trained athletes", Med. Sci. Sports & Exerc, 34, 1436 (2002)

Plus publications from Dehennin et al., Le Bizec et al., Kintz et al. all describing normal levels of mean values of around 0.3 to 0.5 ng/mL in athletes and volunteers.

Davis worked on the Hylton case and his work caused the hearing chairman to say that Cowen's work was deplorable.

He presented work that cleared Ottey and did not give witness testimony to the other GB athletes in Monaco.

Also worked on the Kohnler paper on injury/nandrolone.Also did the original work on stable isotobe tests.

to drive an athletes name into the dirt....

my big book of facts here tells me the Hezekiel Sepeng tested positive for it this year, anyone know more about this?

I have always been an advocate of drug testing in sports and the fight against doping-free sport.

Due to the ongoing debates on Nandrolone (NA/NE) and spate of nandrolone positives in revent years, I have chosen to focus my thesis on metabolite excretion of endurance athletes under extreme conditions.

The recent scientific research suggesting that,a chemical reaction may occur resulting in the phenomenon of “unstable urine.” Subsequently, WADA has instructed all accredited labs to perform “stability tests” on urine samples with nandrolone concentration from 2 to 10 Ng/ml that show abnormal steroid profiles. Should the “stability test” reveal “unstable urine”, the laboratories won’t have to report an adverse analytical finding.

If the characteristics known for "unstable urine",(as on the WADA technical note),were present in a samlpe,would there be any other distinguising characteristics that would suggest "unstable urine"? Would large discrepancies between samples,be evidence of this phenomenon?

Old guy I am with you...innocent athlete's careers have been destroyed!!If you read the WADA tech doc which I just did it says the phenomenon was only discovered "very recently" not in 2002 as suggested by Ayotte...

I also researched the articles suggested and they are mostly non representitive..

Further this so called "laboratory controlled" research was based on in one case a male judoist, the other on soccer players!!How is this representitive???(referenced in the Nandrolone tech doc 2004)

The Nandrolone review group used the same samples....what a joke...when there is proven individual variability,how can they generalise and base a WADA threshold on such poor data!?

From what I have read it is a chemical reaction that occurs outside the body...so if this is the case surely its more than likely you would think the second sample would be higher?

An awful lot of supplement are said to contain Nandrolone, or Nandrolone precursors. That is the reason why so many involved in various sports have tested positive.

Of course the journalists don't care about that, a headline with the words DRUG CHEAT is far more appealing and money making to them.

Are you kidding me with that Schmitt paper? I have never seen such crappy science try to predict anything!

15 trained athletes on a wingate test and then a timed treadmill run at 85% of VO2Max and then tries to pretend that that says anything about the physiological effects of say running a marathon, or an Ironman, or a 160 mile bike race!?!?! Not mention the stress of competing. You have to be kidding me! That doesn't make any sort of logical sense.

That is like saying athletes don't need to hydrate during a marathon because you had 20 guys run for ten minutes where 10 got water and 10 didn't and the ones that didn't get water didn't perform any worse.

It is amazing the crap that gets published and then used to try to "prove something"

Mrs Ayotte,

I really hope you have more scientific support for a test that very possible could ruin a persons life. The papers and research you listed are paltry at best.

If you are going to perform a test on tens of thousands of people you have to prove it can work a across the entire population of candidates and situations.

Testing protocols that test 30 or 40 people in unrepresentitive situations is not predictive. Nor is nearly large enough to even pretend to approach the variablity in the physiology of the real life tested population.

If this test, the urine EPO test, and the new homologous blood transfusion test are indicitive of the quality of proceedure you are willing to accept and institute, the validity of the entire WADA program is in question and ALL test should be re-examined.

It seems to me that in a rush to keep pace with the cheaters on a limited budget you have forgone anything aproaching scientific acceptability.

I realize that performance enhancing drugs are a blight on sport and there is tremendous pressure to erradicate their use, but these test are little more than glorified witch trials.

drop it...

Do not ignore the fact that False positive rates are for one sample. False positives from both samples would be extremely low. Since you have less than a one in a thousand chance of seeing a false positive, the odds of both A and B being false positive jumps to 1 in a million or more.

Classified Ads wrote:

Do not ignore the fact that False positive rates are for one sample. False positives from both samples would be extremely low. Since you have less than a one in a thousand chance of seeing a false positive, the odds of both A and B being false positive jumps to 1 in a million or more.

You are assuming that mathamatical independence which is very much not the case. If the situation arises where endogenous metabolites exsist or there is contamination, the A/B sample will correlate very well but both be FALSE POSITIVES!