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August 10, 2006
New York Times
Does Testosterone Build a Better Athlete?
By NATASHA SINGER
TESTOSTERONE injections can make male rats more aggressive in marking their territories, cause castrated red deer to grow antlers, and induce female rhesus monkeys to screech like males. In studies on humans, testosterone injections have increased and strengthened muscles.
But does taking testosterone — a controlled substance whose possession is illegal unless prescribed for medical reasons — automatically improve athletic performance?
In sports, testosterone shots or creams are supposed to be magic bullets that spur athletes to train harder, run or bicycle more quickly, jump higher, swim faster, hit a baseball farther, recover sooner, and, let’s not forget, increased sex drive and combativeness. Certainly, the idea that taking doses of the hormone gives competitors an unfair advantage is behind the brouhaha over Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winner who French officials say tested positive for elevated testosterone on the day of his remarkable comeback during Stage 17. Mr. Landis has denied taking any performance-enhancing substances.
But some leading experts who study testosterone are not convinced that supplementing the hormone improves endurance or overall athletic performance. Unlike a hyper-caffeinated sports drink, the synthetic hormone does not provide an instant jolt, but works over time to bulk and fortify muscles.
What other effects taking testosterone may have on athletes is the subject of heated debate.
“A long-term buildup of testosterone would produce results,” said Allan Mazur, a professor of public affairs at Syracuse University, who has studied how the natural hormones of college athletes fluctuate before and after competitions. “But we don’t know the short-term effects of using testosterone on an athlete’s performance, or whether it even has a short-term effect at all.”
Secreted by the testes and adrenal glands, testosterone is the male sex hormone that generates and maintains secondary sexual characteristics like a deep voice and body hair. It also plays a role in body fat, and in muscle size, strength, and function.
Some athletes illegally use anabolic steroids, the muscle-promoting drugs or hormonal substances that are chemically related to testosterone, in the form of injections, skin patches, creams or pills. These steroids can stimulate muscle building. But they will not transform couch potatoes into pole-vaulters.
“Steroids are not going to take someone without athletic ability and turn them into a star athlete, or teach you how to swing a bat and connect with the ball,” said Douglas A. Granger, the director of the behavioral endocrinology laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. “But if you have a certain athletic presence, testosterone could take you to the next level.”
Steroids first became popular among American bodybuilders in the 1950’s after they began to suspect that gold-medal-winning Soviet weightlifters were using them, sports researchers said. But the American medical establishment did not believe that supplemental testosterone could promote muscle growth until the 1990’s when scientists began examining its effects, said Dr. Shalender Bhasin, a professor of medicine and chief of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition at Boston Medical Center.
In 1996, Dr. Bhasin published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine on the impact of testosterone injections, given once a week for 10 weeks, on healthy adult males. The idea was to see whether testosterone might be used therapeutically in muscle-wasting diseases like AIDS. For volunteers who received testosterone, their triceps and quadriceps became larger and they had increased muscle strength during bench presses and squats.
“Synthetic steroids take you from being a natural normal male to being a supermale with muscles that are bigger and stronger,” said Dr. Donald H. Catlin, the director of the Olympic Analytical Laboratory, a drug-testing facility, at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Athletes love to take steroids because they work.”
But do bigger, steroid-enhanced muscles generate big winners?
“We assume that, if you are stronger, you will perform better, but that might not necessarily be true,” said Michael S. Bahrke, a steroids researcher in Ellison Bay, Wis., and co-editor of a book called “Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sport and Exercise.” “For football and baseball players, explosive muscle mass might relate to more power, but it is difficult to document that it leads to better performance.”
Larger muscles might even be detrimental for certain athletes. For marathoners, enhanced muscles could put more weight on joints than they can handle, leading to injuries, Dr. Bahrke said.
In addition to joint problems, taking steroids can cause side effects like oily skin, acne, shrunken testicles, sterility and male breasts. Synthetic testosterone can also inhibit good cholesterol, increasing the risk of heart disease.
But withdrawal, which can make some men deflate like used balloons, may be the most troubling problem. Taking steroids suppresses men’s own natural testosterone production. After athletes stop taking testosterone, the body may take weeks to months to return to normal hormone levels.
“In the meantime, you will have decreased muscles and decreased sexual function, such stressful withdrawal symptoms that many people go right back on testosterone,” Dr. Bhasin said.
Because of the possible side effects, doctors rarely experiment on humans by dosing them with testosterone unless it is for medical reasons. Without that kind of empirical data, scientists can only speculate on how testosterone may affect a person’s competitiveness and athletic ability, researchers said. But there are some intriguing observational data.
Observational studies of humans show that hormone levels may fluctuate during competitions. For example, Alan Booth, a professor of sociology and human development at Penn State, has conducted several studies with Dr. Mazur, and with Dr. Granger, in which they measured the testosterone in saliva samples taken from a variety of college athletes. Their studies found that many male and female athletes’ testosterone levels increased before competitions. After the competitions were over, among men, the winners’ testosterone levels tended to rise temporarily while the losers’ testosterone tended to drop.
The researchers cannot prove why the hormone fluctuated, but Dr. Booth theorized that post-game testosterone fluctuations may have originated during ancient tribal warfare, the kind of continuing life-or-death competition that would require long-term physical and mental readiness.
“If you win, you know you are going to be challenged again soon, so higher testosterone would keep you prepared for the next challenge,” Dr. Booth said. A dip in testosterone might make losers disinclined to fight further, he said. “Lower testosterone may keep individuals, who lost and got seriously wounded, from engaging in another immediate battle where they might suffer even more damage.”
But Dr. Bhasin said that such testosterone oscillations may play no role. Testosterone has been shown to rise a little in anticipation of exertion, like a treadmill run, he explained. “But the explanations of cause and effect between athletic performance and testosterone are very weak.”
Other researchers have speculated that taking testosterone may stimulate fine motor skills that improve athletes’ hand-eye coordination or help athletes recover from exertion by increasing the amount of oxygen in their bloodstreams.
Dr. Bhasin’s research contradicts some locker room myths. In his own study, the volunteers injected with testosterone neither experienced improved endurance nor exploded in ’roid-induced rage, he said.
“There have always been a lot of misconceptions about testosterone,” Dr. Bhasin added. “I’m very hopeful that clarity will emerge, but right now there is a lot of folklore.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/fashion/10Fitness.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
New York Times
Does Testosterone Build a Better Athlete?
By NATASHA SINGER
TESTOSTERONE injections can make male rats more aggressive in marking their territories, cause castrated red deer to grow antlers, and induce female rhesus monkeys to screech like males. In studies on humans, testosterone injections have increased and strengthened muscles.
But does taking testosterone — a controlled substance whose possession is illegal unless prescribed for medical reasons — automatically improve athletic performance?
In sports, testosterone shots or creams are supposed to be magic bullets that spur athletes to train harder, run or bicycle more quickly, jump higher, swim faster, hit a baseball farther, recover sooner, and, let’s not forget, increased sex drive and combativeness. Certainly, the idea that taking doses of the hormone gives competitors an unfair advantage is behind the brouhaha over Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winner who French officials say tested positive for elevated testosterone on the day of his remarkable comeback during Stage 17. Mr. Landis has denied taking any performance-enhancing substances.
But some leading experts who study testosterone are not convinced that supplementing the hormone improves endurance or overall athletic performance. Unlike a hyper-caffeinated sports drink, the synthetic hormone does not provide an instant jolt, but works over time to bulk and fortify muscles.
What other effects taking testosterone may have on athletes is the subject of heated debate.
“A long-term buildup of testosterone would produce results,” said Allan Mazur, a professor of public affairs at Syracuse University, who has studied how the natural hormones of college athletes fluctuate before and after competitions. “But we don’t know the short-term effects of using testosterone on an athlete’s performance, or whether it even has a short-term effect at all.”
Secreted by the testes and adrenal glands, testosterone is the male sex hormone that generates and maintains secondary sexual characteristics like a deep voice and body hair. It also plays a role in body fat, and in muscle size, strength, and function.
Some athletes illegally use anabolic steroids, the muscle-promoting drugs or hormonal substances that are chemically related to testosterone, in the form of injections, skin patches, creams or pills. These steroids can stimulate muscle building. But they will not transform couch potatoes into pole-vaulters.
“Steroids are not going to take someone without athletic ability and turn them into a star athlete, or teach you how to swing a bat and connect with the ball,” said Douglas A. Granger, the director of the behavioral endocrinology laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. “But if you have a certain athletic presence, testosterone could take you to the next level.”
Steroids first became popular among American bodybuilders in the 1950’s after they began to suspect that gold-medal-winning Soviet weightlifters were using them, sports researchers said. But the American medical establishment did not believe that supplemental testosterone could promote muscle growth until the 1990’s when scientists began examining its effects, said Dr. Shalender Bhasin, a professor of medicine and chief of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition at Boston Medical Center.
In 1996, Dr. Bhasin published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine on the impact of testosterone injections, given once a week for 10 weeks, on healthy adult males. The idea was to see whether testosterone might be used therapeutically in muscle-wasting diseases like AIDS. For volunteers who received testosterone, their triceps and quadriceps became larger and they had increased muscle strength during bench presses and squats.
“Synthetic steroids take you from being a natural normal male to being a supermale with muscles that are bigger and stronger,” said Dr. Donald H. Catlin, the director of the Olympic Analytical Laboratory, a drug-testing facility, at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Athletes love to take steroids because they work.”
But do bigger, steroid-enhanced muscles generate big winners?
“We assume that, if you are stronger, you will perform better, but that might not necessarily be true,” said Michael S. Bahrke, a steroids researcher in Ellison Bay, Wis., and co-editor of a book called “Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sport and Exercise.” “For football and baseball players, explosive muscle mass might relate to more power, but it is difficult to document that it leads to better performance.”
Larger muscles might even be detrimental for certain athletes. For marathoners, enhanced muscles could put more weight on joints than they can handle, leading to injuries, Dr. Bahrke said.
In addition to joint problems, taking steroids can cause side effects like oily skin, acne, shrunken testicles, sterility and male breasts. Synthetic testosterone can also inhibit good cholesterol, increasing the risk of heart disease.
But withdrawal, which can make some men deflate like used balloons, may be the most troubling problem. Taking steroids suppresses men’s own natural testosterone production. After athletes stop taking testosterone, the body may take weeks to months to return to normal hormone levels.
“In the meantime, you will have decreased muscles and decreased sexual function, such stressful withdrawal symptoms that many people go right back on testosterone,” Dr. Bhasin said.
Because of the possible side effects, doctors rarely experiment on humans by dosing them with testosterone unless it is for medical reasons. Without that kind of empirical data, scientists can only speculate on how testosterone may affect a person’s competitiveness and athletic ability, researchers said. But there are some intriguing observational data.
Observational studies of humans show that hormone levels may fluctuate during competitions. For example, Alan Booth, a professor of sociology and human development at Penn State, has conducted several studies with Dr. Mazur, and with Dr. Granger, in which they measured the testosterone in saliva samples taken from a variety of college athletes. Their studies found that many male and female athletes’ testosterone levels increased before competitions. After the competitions were over, among men, the winners’ testosterone levels tended to rise temporarily while the losers’ testosterone tended to drop.
The researchers cannot prove why the hormone fluctuated, but Dr. Booth theorized that post-game testosterone fluctuations may have originated during ancient tribal warfare, the kind of continuing life-or-death competition that would require long-term physical and mental readiness.
“If you win, you know you are going to be challenged again soon, so higher testosterone would keep you prepared for the next challenge,” Dr. Booth said. A dip in testosterone might make losers disinclined to fight further, he said. “Lower testosterone may keep individuals, who lost and got seriously wounded, from engaging in another immediate battle where they might suffer even more damage.”
But Dr. Bhasin said that such testosterone oscillations may play no role. Testosterone has been shown to rise a little in anticipation of exertion, like a treadmill run, he explained. “But the explanations of cause and effect between athletic performance and testosterone are very weak.”
Other researchers have speculated that taking testosterone may stimulate fine motor skills that improve athletes’ hand-eye coordination or help athletes recover from exertion by increasing the amount of oxygen in their bloodstreams.
Dr. Bhasin’s research contradicts some locker room myths. In his own study, the volunteers injected with testosterone neither experienced improved endurance nor exploded in ’roid-induced rage, he said.
“There have always been a lot of misconceptions about testosterone,” Dr. Bhasin added. “I’m very hopeful that clarity will emerge, but right now there is a lot of folklore.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/fashion/10Fitness.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
