Topic: Testosterone Levels

[Scott Safe]

Here's a question that may be stupid, but here goes....I believe the acceptable limit of testosterone to epitestosterone is 6:1.  I've also heard a fairly high level for a normal man is 2:1.  I've heard that some countries take straight human testosterone(not synthetic steroids) and run the athletes level up to the 6:1 mark and consider it legal because they're not over the 6:1 level and it is a natural human hormone that they are taking.  Has anybody heard similar stories and would this in fact be considered "legal"??

Scott

[glennpendlay]

certainly the easiest way to get around the current testing would be with testosterone...    if you had a lab to measure epitest ratios, and even better if you had access to epitest...  well it would be very easy to take a lot of drugs and never get caught.

the really  good thing about doing it that way, would be that even random NAN testing couldnt get you.  especially if you say listed your training time as evening (which is when you are responsible to be there to be tested), and took aqueous test after training, well it would be far below detectable levels by the next evening...  especially if you were maintaining a reasonable epitest level.

thats what makes me wonder so much about these international guys getting popped with all these weird drugs in their systems.  why dont they just use test and epitest?

[Alex Power]

Doping with testosterone, and the drug testing for testosterone is more complicated that this. If your sample shows that you have a testosterone:epitestosterone (T:E) of greater than 6:1 you are considered under suspision. Many people do in fact have a ratio of 6:1 or greater. So if you're under suspision, further tests will be performed to determine if this is a normal level for you. If you have a ratio greater than 11:1 it is typically considered automatic guilt. That being said I know, a sprinter who medalled at the Commonwealth games who was stripped of his medal for a high ratio and then had it returned when records showed that he always had this ratio (above 11:1), even as a provincially ranked teenager.

Another test that can be done is a carbon isotope test. The carbon isotope most common in synthetic forms of testosterone is not the same as is most common in endogenous testosterone. This test can therefore determine if the testostosterone in your body was produced by your body, or administered exoginously.

Another test that is done on the urine sample is total testosterone levels. This is to prevent what Glenn suggested. That is, concommitant use of testosterone and epitestosterone.

As far as people being caught using drugs you wouldn't suspect them to use, this is almost always nandrolone and related metabolites. Nobody with any knowledge about drug testing or drug metabolism would use nandrolone. Anyone with any knowledge of drug testing knows that this will cause  a positive drug test for well over a year. So what's happening? It was previously  thought that nandrolone did not exist naturally as a result of normal human metabolism. Now there is research showing that this is not always the case in women. I suspect that with time is will be shown that men also produce this hormone under some conditions. No one ever noticed this before because testing has never been this sensitive. If you look at nandrolone positives, they have been increasing since 1999. This is shortly after testing techniques allowed substances to be detected in the parts per trillion range. Given this evidence, any nandrolone positive should be looked upon with suspision.

[glennpendlay]

alex, i believe the max ration used to be 6:1, now it is 12:1...  as far as the under suspicion, i dont know the details of this.  but of course you are right, there are some outliers, some people who have naturally high ratios, that is why the limits have to be high, much higher than the ratio actually is for the majority of the population.

even this doesnt really matter, if you are naturally 8:1, and take some epitest, you can take a lot of extra test and not go over the ratio.  of course there is a limit to how high your epitest levels can be also...  and this would be complicated further because if you were taking test, especially something like aqueous test, your natural production of both test and more importantly epitest would be stopped or severely inhibited...  it would be really hard to tell how much epitest you were producing naturally at any given time, thus hard to tell how much to take.

so to make use of this, a person would need a lab, to at least get some sort of preliminary data on how much a certain amount of test raised their levels over a certain time frame, and the same info on epitest.  the best case would be to have access to a lab for ongoing tests, to make sure you stayed "legal" at all times.  with a lab and some know-how, it could be done.

as far as the carbon isotope test, i dont think that is used.  it is out there, but as of a couple of years ago, it was not included in the drug testing package at IOC labs.  i dont think anything has changed.  if it were, then i assume that test with the correct carbon isotope would appear on the market.  i dont think this would be a difficult thing, though i could be wrong.

you mentioned the total testosterone levels test...  this is not really a seperate test, the ratios are constructed by knowing the absolute amounts of each hormone.  there are limits on the absolute amount of epitest, as well as the ratios.  

im not up on the last year or two of changes in testing or the rules of what is allowable, though i dont think that anything substantial has changed.  i do know that when i was doing the research for my masters, which was in the area of hormones, test and cortisol specifically, i had the opinion that had i wanted to, and with the access to test/epitest and a little money to pay for ongoing tests of an athlete, i could have beat the tests that they had, even with the NAN testing.  i think there are many out there with much more expertise in this area than me, and with the motivation to do do this, and the rescources to do it.  so i assume its been done or is being done by someone.

and i agree about the nandrolone thing.  looking at the available research, it seems quite certain that nandrolone levels in the blood that could get one popped on a drug test, while not common, can most definately be present naturally in the blood.  its been a while since i have read any of the research on this, but i seem to remember that there are things one can do that will raise, in some people, the nandrolone metabolites in the blood to levels which would constitute a positive drug test...  two things which i seem to remember from one study are exercise and eating a lot of meat!

the eating a lot of meat i can understand.  hormones are given to cattle, if we eat enough of them, and the tests are as sensitive as they are now, it makes sense that some of the metabolites could show up.  i dont pretend to know the significance of exercise.  i do know that i am very nervous when the NAN people show up here, which it seems they do every month or so to test someone.  i always try to make sure they test whoever they are testing before training, not immedietly after.

[Alex Power]

Glenn,

I agree that one could pass the t:e ratio test by administering synthetic T. and E. but you would need lab support.
Through frank discussions with athlete from Europe, it is my impression that most athletes don't bother with this as most are not subject to NAN. Most, it would seem, use injectable test and stop a 1 to 2 weeks away from competition depending on whether it's a short ester or an aqueous suspension. Oral drug are also taken and discontinued about 4-5 weeks out. Better funded programs also pretest their athletes prior to competition.

I thought that the isotope test was approved. The abscence of this test greatly simplifies doping with T. It strikes me as funny that the isotope test is not in use as this is not a technically difficult test.

The funny thing about the T:E ratio test to me is that it just shows what I have always thought many of these top athletes. They are just naturally more equiped than mortals such as myself. Oh well, me and my totally average testicles will just have to make due.

[ButchCurry]

Glenn,
 
Posting that kind of information takes a lot of guts.  I remember in my college years, I took a sports sociology course and we discussed drugs in sports. Well this one football player knew way too much. So everyone was sure he was on drugs. Guilt by association I guess. I hope you don't get painted with that same brush.
 
Your kind of frank posting is a welcomed sight. Thank you.
 

[JOHN BROZ]

If it was that easy to dope with T and TE ratios, and you suggest that a better funded team could do so, than what happened in the ATHENS OLYMPICS with the GREEK who tested positive for T:E ?????
I'm sure with them being the host country and tons of exposure if doping is going on why did they get popped????

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

John,

In my opinion, there are so many weightlifters using banned substances, and so many federations supporting their efforts to get away with it that using them does not provide a significant advantage against the majority of competitors.

So, I think it has become a contest of degree. Who can use the greatest amount of the most effective banned substances and who can get away with using them closer to the contest in question?

So, they are all trying to out do each other and cut the safety margin needed to clean out in time for the test. Since there are individual differences in response, and to some extent hormonal levels fluctuate with exogenous use, sometimes they mess up and take the drugs too close to the test. Add in the fact that the penalties are pretty minor for getting caught, for both the athlete and federation, and especially the federation, and you have the cheaters simply rolling the dice and trying to get away with everything they can up to the last minute before the competition. Inevitably, some get caught while most clean up in time and beat the test.

Considering the massive expense of performing drug testing on the scale necessary to clean up our sport, which is simply not even close to happening, the only way to make an impact in the charade is to go to lifetime suspensions of athletes on their first offense in international competition, end the ability of federations to buy their way out of team suspensions for multiple positives in international competition, and suspend entire federations for four years, to include the next Olympic Games, any time they have more than one positive in international competitions within a four year period.

I believe these rules must be tightened since the IWF and WADA can simply not afford to substantially increase testing.