2020 Revised Terms of Reference for the World Athletics Russia Taskforce / World Athletics. - Monaco : World Athletics, 2020

The chair of the Russian Taskforce Rune Andersen reported that there has been progress on the part of the Russian Federation in developing a meaningful Reinstatement Plan to drive the cultural change required for Russia to return to full international membership of the sport.

Andersen said that a foundation had been laid in recent months for the new RusAF leadership, which was elected on Monday, to put an appropriate plan in place by the deadline of 1 March 2021.

The World Ahtletics Council approved revised terms of reference for the Taskforce to reflect these recent developments.

RusAF must meet the deadline of 1 March 2021 and continue to pay the costs associated with the reinstatement process or the Council decision from July this year – to propose that Congress expels RusAF from membership of World Athletics – will come into effect.

The Council will consider whether to allow Russian athletes to compete again as Authorised Neutral Athletes in international competitions (including allowing up to 10 ANAs to participate in World Athletics Series events and the Tokyo Olympic Games) at its next meeting, in March 2021, or earlier if the Taskforce so recommends, based on the progress made by RusAF to that date.

The Drug Free Sport NZ education video handles the criteria in deciding whether to include a substance or method on the Prohibited List

Drug Free Sport NZ (DFSNZ) is New Zealand's sports anti-doping organisation that works to keep sport drug-free. DFSNZ is responsible for implementing and applying the World Anti-Doping Code. The priorities are enforcement, education, and influence.

A call for policy guidance on psychometric testing in doping control in sport / Andrea Petróczi, Susan H. Backhouse, Vassilis Barkoukis, Ralf Brand, Anne-Marie Elbe, Lambros Lazuras, Fabio Lucidi. - (International Journal of Drug Policy 26 (2015) 11 (November); p. 1130-1139)

• PMID: 26094122
• DOI: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.04.022

Abstract

One of the fundamental challenges in anti-doping is identifying athletes who use, or are at risk of using, prohibited performance enhancing substances. The growing trend to employ a forensic approach to doping control aims to integrate information from social sciences (e.g., psychology of doping) into organised intelligence to protect clean sport. Beyond the foreseeable consequences of a positive identification as a doping user, this task is further complicated by the discrepancy between what constitutes a doping offence in the World Anti-Doping Code and operationalized in doping research. Whilst psychology plays an important role in developing our understanding of doping behaviour in order to inform intervention and prevention, its contribution to the array of doping diagnostic tools is still in its infancy. In both research and forensic settings, we must acknowledge that (1) socially desirable responding confounds self-reported psychometric test results and (2) that the cognitive complexity surrounding test performance means that the response-time based measures and the lie detector tests for revealing concealed life-events (e.g., doping use) are prone to produce false or non-interpretable outcomes in field settings. Differences in social-cognitive characteristics of doping behaviour that are tested at group level (doping users vs. non-users) cannot be extrapolated to individuals; nor these psychometric measures used for individual diagnostics. In this paper, we present a position statement calling for policy guidance on appropriate use of psychometric assessments in the pursuit of clean sport. We argue that, to date, both self-reported and response-time based psychometric tests for doping have been designed, tested and validated to explore how athletes feel and think about doping in order to develop a better understanding of doping behaviour, not to establish evidence for doping. A false 'positive' psychological profile for doping affects not only the individual 'clean' athlete but also their entourage, their organisation and sport itself. The proposed policy guidance aims to protect the global athletic community against social, ethical and legal consequences from potential misuse of psychological tests, including erroneous or incompetent applications as forensic diagnostic tools in both practice and research.

A case of affective disorder associated with the misuse of 'anabolic steroids' / H.M. Perry, G.W. Hughes. - (British Journal of Sports Medicine 26 (1992) 4 (December); p. 219-220)

• PMID: 1362688
• PMCID: PMC1478994
• DOI: 10.1136/bjsm.26.4.219

Abstract

In the pursuit of gains in muscle size and strength, body-builders may mistakenly use illicit drugs believing them to be anabolic steroids. The case described illustrates the physical and psychological dangers of such behaviour.

A case of anabolic steroid abuse / John H. Porcerelli, Bruce A. Sandler. - (Psychiatric Clinics of North America 21 (1998) 4 (1 December); p. 829-833)

Abstract

This case report is of a young man who developed significant psychiatric symptomatology, which warranted brief hospitalization, as a result of anabolic-androgenic steroid abuse. His symptoms included hostility, agitation, and homicidal and paranoid thinking. The initiation of steroid use was motivated by efforts to master an adult trauma (being shot with a shotgun). Individual (outpatient) psychotherapy helped the patient to understand his fears and to discover and work through the meanings that the shooting and injuries had for him. Cessation of steroid use eliminated his presenting symptoms. However, the major depressive symptoms, indicative of steroid dependence, developed and were treated successfully on an outpatient basis with antidepressant medication.

A Cell-Free Bioassay for the Detection of Androgens / Elliot R. Cooper, Gillian Hughes, Alexia Kauff, Emma Sutherland, Zoe Ashley, Alison K. Heather. - (Drug Testing and Analysis (2021) 11 March)

• PMID: 33709622
• DOI: 10.1002/dta.3024

Abstract

Androgens remain abused performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Technologies based on mass spectrometry can detect all forms of androgens but fail if the androgen represents a novel structure. A bioassay detects androgens based on function rather than structure. To date, there has been limited adoption of cell-based in vitro bioassays as a screening tool for non-targeted androgen detection because they require expert personnel and specialized equipment to perform. We now describe the development of a cell-free version of an androgen in vitro bioassay. Stage 1 involved in vitro transcription/translation reactions (IVTT) using a DNA template encoding an enhancer/ARE regulatory region upstream of a minimal promoter that drives expression of a reporter protein. The assay detected testosterone across the concentration range of 106.7 to 0.0144 ng/mL (3.7X10-7 -5X10-11 M), with an EC50 of 6.63 ng/mL (23 nM). To reduce complexity, stages 2-4 of development included just in vitro transcription (IVT) reactions, whereby the output was an RNA molecule. Stage 2 involved directly labeling the RNA molecule with fluorophore-labeled nucleotide triphosphates, stage 3 involved reverse transcription-PCR of the RNA molecule and stage 4 utilized an RNA aptamer, Mango II, as its RNA output. The stage 4 product detected testosterone across the range of 106.7-0.0001 ng/mL (3.7X10-7 -5X10-13 M), with an EC50 of 0.04 ng/mL (0.155 nM). Further to this, we showed that the stage 4 product could detect other androgenic molecules. Relative to cell-based bioassays, the Stage 4 product is easy to perform and could be developed into a routine, high-throughput, non-targeted androgen screen.

A cellular memory mechanism aids overload hypertrophy in muscle long after an episodic exposure to anabolic steroids / Ingrid M. Egner, Jo C. Bruusgaard, Einar Eftestøl, Kristian Gundersen. – (Journal of physiology (2013) 24 (28 October) : p. 6221-6230) doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2013.264457. Epub 2013 Oct 28.

Content:
- Introduction
- Methods
• Animal experiments
• Analysis of testosterone levels in blood
• In vivo myonuclear imaging
• Immunohistochemistry
• Statistics
- Results
- Discussion
• Mechanisms for muscle hypertrophy and memory
• Muscle memory in sport and public health

Previous strength training with or without the use of anabolic steroids facilitates subsequent re-acquisition of muscle mass even after long intervening periods of inactivity. Based on in vivo and ex vivo microscopy we here propose a cellular memory mechanism residing in the muscle cells. Female mice were treated with testosterone propionate for 14 days, inducing a 66% increase in the number of myonuclei and a 77% increase in fibre cross-sectional area. Three weeks after removing the drug, fibre size was decreased to the same level as in sham treated animals, but the number of nuclei remained elevated for at least 3 months (>10% of the mouse lifespan). At this time, when the myonuclei-rich muscles were exposed to overload-exercise for 6 days, the fibre cross-sectional area increased by 31% while control muscles did not grow significantly. We suggest that the lasting, elevated number of myonuclei constitutes a cellular memory facilitating subsequent muscle overload hypertrophy. Our findings might have consequences for the exclusion time of doping offenders. Since the ability to generate new myonuclei is impaired in the elderly our data also invites speculation that it might be beneficial to perform strength training when young in order to benefit in senescence.

Comment in:
Muscle nuclei remember to cheat death / L.M. Schwartz. – (Journal of physiology (2013) 24 (25 December) : p. 6133-6134) doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2013.268243.

A Comparison of Health Risk Behavior in Adolescent Users of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids, by Gender and Athlete Status / Kathleen E. Miller, Grace M. Barnes, Don Sabo, Merrill J. Melnick,  Michael P. Farrell. - (Sociology of Sport Journal 19 (2002) 4 ; 385-402)

• DOI: 10.1123/ssj.19.4.385

Contrary to popular assumption, adolescent anabolic-androgenic steroid use is not limited to serious male athletes. This paper examines the relationships among gender, athletic participation, and health-related problem behaviors among adolescent steroid users. Regression analyses were performed on a nationally representative sample of over 16,000 high school students (the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey), of whom nearly 500 had used steroids. Compared to nonusers, steroid users were significantly more likely to report substance use, suicidal behavior, and sexual risk-taking; however, patterns of risk behavior varied by the user’s athletic status and gender. After controlling for age, race, ethnicity, and parental education, both athletic participation and female gender were negatively associated with most risk behaviors among users of anabolic steroids.

A comparison of the physiological response to simulated altitude exposure and r-HuEpo administration / M.J. Ashenden, A.G. Hahn, D.T. Martin, P. Logan, R. Parisotto, C.J. Gore. - (Journal of Sports Sciences 19 (2001) 11 (November); p. 831-837)

• PMID: 11695504
• DOI: 10.1080/026404101753113778

Abstract

Concerns have been raised about the morality of using simulated altitude facilities in an attempt to improve athletic performance. One assumption that has been influential in this debate is the belief that altitude houses simply mimic the physiological effects of illegal recombinant human erythropoietin (r-HuEpo) doping. To test the validity of this assumption, the haematological and physiological responses of 23 well-trained athletes exposed to a simulated altitude of 2650-3000 m for 11-23 nights were contrasted with those of healthy volunteers receiving a low dose (150 IU x kg(-1) per week) of r-HuEpo for 25 days. Serial blood samples were analysed for serum erythropoietin and percent reticulocytes; maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) was assessed before and after r-HuEpo administration or simulated altitude exposure. The group mean increase in serum erythropoietin (422% for r-HuEpo vs 59% for simulated altitude), percent reticulocytes (89% vs 30%) and VO2max (6.6% vs -2.0%) indicated that simulated altitude did not induce the changes obtained with r-HuEpo administration. Based on the disparity of these responses, we conclude that simulated altitude facilities should not be considered unethical based solely on the tenet that they provide an alternative means of obtaining the benefits sought by illegal r-HuEpo doping.

Donovan RJ, Egger G, Kapernick V, Mendoza J.
Sports Med. 2002;32(4):269-84.
Division of Health Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. rdonovan@curtin.edu.au

There has been, and continues to be, widespread international concern about athletes' use of banned performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). This concern culminated in the formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 1999. To date, the main focus on controlling the use of PEDs has been on testing athletes and the development of tests to detect usage. Although athletes' beliefs and values are known to influence whether or not an athlete
will use drugs, little is known about athletes' beliefs and attitudes, and the limited empirical literature shows little use of behavioural science frameworks to guide research methodology, results interpretation, and intervention implications.

Mindful of this in preparing its antidoping strategy for the 2000 Olympics, the Australian Sports Drug Agency (ASDA) in 1997 commissioned a study to assess the extent to which models of attitude-behaviour change in the public health/injury prevention literature had useful implications for compliance campaigns in the sport drug area.

A preliminary compliance model was developed from three behavioural science frameworks: social cognition models; threat (or fear) appeals; and instrumental and normative approaches. A subsequent review of the performance enhancing drug literature confirmed that the overall framework was consistent with known empirical data, and therefore had at least face validity if not construct validity. The overall model showed six major inputs to an athlete's attitudes and intentions with respect to performance
enhancing drug usage: personality factors, threat appraisal, benefit appraisal, reference group influences, personal morality and legitimacy. The model demonstrated that a comprehensive,
fully integrated programme is necessary for maximal effect, and provides anti-doping agencies with a structured framework for strategic planning and implementing interventions.

Programmes can be developed in each of the six major areas, with allocation of resources to each area based on needs-assessment research with athletes and other relevant groups.

PMID:
11929355
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]