Ramblin’ On My Mind

Lots of things going on the last few days. A couple of articles in the New York Times struck a chord for me.

What, Me Paranoid?

First is the article that appeared in Saturday’s paper with the headline Wary U.S. Olympians Will Bring Food to China. The article caught my eye for more than one reason. First, the smart-ass in me wondered, “What, is the food there so bad that we now have to bring our own? Or can’t the Chinese government actually provide enough food for the athletes?”

But, of course, the story leads off with an anecdote about an American caterer, hired to provide food for US Olympians in Beijing, who ran across a half a chicken breast that was 14 inches long, with enough meat on it to feed a family of eight. That’s some gigantic chicken they grow on the other side of the Pacific. Is he sure it wasn’t a turkey breast? (Just another wise-ass comment, that’s not a serious question.)

Where it gets really interesting is the second paragraph, which quotes Frank Puleo, the caterer, as saying:

“We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”

That’s the real reason right there. The story raises several questions, some related to doping, and some not. Perhaps the most important point (in my mind) is that the meats that we consume are so laden with drugs of various sorts. If I encountered a chicken breast in the supermarket as large as the story describes, I’d be a bit suspicious about it. Growth hormones, steroids, probably a few antibiotics thrown in for good measure.

Even if the drugs don’t exactly enhance the chicken’s performance, they appear to have enhanced the animal’s size.

Now, when it comes to the whole subject of doping in sports, a story like this shows just how careful — dare I say “paranoid” — one has to be during competition. Just how juiced was that bird? Hormones, steroids, and many other things are given to the animals that we consume on a regular basis. And, with certain test methods, those hormones and steroids and so forth can be detected.

With the concept of strict liability, of course, it doesn’t matter how a banned substance got in you, just that it’s there. But, if it could be there just from consuming a chicken breast, or piece of meat, should a person be punished? Granted, without the strict liability doctrine, athletes might argue that it was the food they ate that caused their positive tests. And perhaps one or two of them would be right.

And, because these tests can’t always determine where a banned substance actually came from, it’s not always possible to say definitively exactly how a banned substance showed up. Except to say that clearly, the accused must have been doping.

Maybe it’s time to take another look at the whole strict liability doctrine. Or, maybe some changes need to be made about what constitutes a positive doping test. Like, for instance, establishing some thresholds for certain substances, so that an athlete who’s consumed “juiced” meat products wouldn’t be charged with doping. Just a thought.

Of course, if the animals weren’t juiced that would be good, too. Not just for the athletes, but for all of us. And it makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, has someone ever been charged with a doping violation for eating contaminated chicken or beef? Far-fetched, I know, but truth has a way of being stranger than fiction.

A New Way To Beat Muscle Fatigue?

Today’s New York Times has another article, which addresses the problem of muscle fatigue. If someone could devise a pill that can prevent muscle fatigue, or at least delay its onset, that has serious implications for sports of all sorts. Endurance athletes might benefit from such drugs, and so could sprinters, weightlifters, and many others.

According to the article, the old idea that lactic acid buildup was the cause of muscle fatigue has been disproved. A new theory suggests that calcium channel leaks in muscle fibers are what cause fatigue. As Gina Kolata reports:

Ordinarily, ebbs and flows of calcium in cells control muscle contractions. But when muscles grow tired, the investigators report, tiny channels in them start leaking calcium, and that weakens contractions. At the same time, the leaked calcium stimulates an enzyme that eats into muscle fibers, contributing to the muscle exhaustion.

The original research was done on mice, but an interesting bit of research has been done on some human subjects, too.

Highly trained bicyclists rode stationary bikes at intense levels of exertion for three hours a day three days in a row. For comparison, other cyclists sat in the room but did not exercise.

Dr. Nieman removed snips of thigh muscle from all the athletes after the third day and sent them to Columbia, where Dr. Marks’s group analyzed them without knowing which samples were from the exercisers and which were not.The results, Dr. Marks said, were clear. The calcium channels in the exercisers leaked. A few days later, the channels had repaired themselves. The athletes were back to normal.

And, of course, the idea that athletes might be interested in using a drug to stave off muscle fatigue comes up, too. As the article concludes, we find this quote:

Yet, Dr. [Steven] Liggett [a researcher at the University of Maryland] said, for athletes “we have to ask whether it would be prudent to be circumventing this mechanism.”

“Maybe this is a protective mechanism,” he said. “Maybe fatigue is saying that you are getting ready to go into a danger zone. So it is cutting you off. If you could will yourself to run as fast and as long as you could, some people would run until they keeled over and died.”

Unfortunately, there are those who are so driven to glory that they would try such a drug, despite the dangers. And, as we’ve seen over the years, some enterprising chemists have found ways of manufacturing drugs and selling them, even though the drugs have not been approved for sale.

Gene doping has long been heralded as the next big thing in doping. While that’s certainly possible, I have a hunch that something much simpler will come along in the meantime. Like, say, finding a way to stave off or even prevent muscle fatigue.