Steroid Nation

Ode Magazine piece misses the mark on doping

A piece in Ode Magazine starts off asking about the role of society vis a vis the Tour de France doping.  Unfortunately by the third paragraph the article drifted astray -- way astray.

If a conclusion is drawn it should be ascertained from the valid data preceding it.  Let's take a look:

I just read the news about the third doping case at this year's Tour de France: Italian rider Riccardo Ricco has tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO. And of course, as it happens so often with sportsmen who are associated with artificial performance-enhancing measures, Ricco was "booed by spectators when he was taken off the Saunier-Duval team bus by police Thursday," the AP report said.

Poor Ricco! I don't think using drugs was such a great idea, but I do feel we need to ask ourselves some serious questions before we condemn him. After all, in the rest of society, performance-boosters have become increasingly commonplace.

OK, now here it comes, the litany of horrible pharmaceutics:

* People take Prozac so they can better manage psychological pressure. * Students take Ritalin to improve their grades. * Middle-aged men take Viagra to spice up their sex lives. * Shy people take Paxil so they can handle social situations. * Writers, musicians and other artists take other stimulants to stand out in their fields.

Cliche list.  Inaccurate information.

• Prozac is not prescribed 'to manage psychological pressure'.  Fluoxetine is prescribed for mood disorders, anxiety disorders like OCD, Autism, and other medical disorders. The key is 'disorder'. The diagnosis 'psychological pressure' will never be found in a medical record.
• Students do not take Ritalin to improve their grades.  Methylphenidate is prescribed for patients with ADHD to ameliorate inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.  An improvement in grades may be a benefit with the appropriate work effort.
• Middle aged men do not take Viagra 'to spice up their sex lives'  (what an incredibly insensitive remark).  Viagra is used for impotence -- the inability to achieve an erection.  "Spice up".  Yeah, We suppose crutches are used by amputees to beat the airport rush.
• Shy people take Paxil so they can handle social situations.   There's an example of an egregious abuse of drugs. huh?  Patients with social anxiety are clearly cheating the system and should simply stay isolated at home.
• Writers etc. tale stimulants to stand out in their field.   Huh?  Ok, you lost us at 'stand'

Seems this writer distorts medicine, or twists medical treatments to support a illogical argument that EPO abusers like Manuel Beltran is paying for the sins of the Prozac Society.

And Marion Jones took insulin mimicking those horrible diabetes who inject insulin so they can eat pizza...

In modern society, athletes have become heroes. Sports stars aren’t so much role models for society as reflections of it, albeit reflections with exceptional talent. Athletes take performance-enhancing substances mainly as a consequence of our sky-high expectations and the huge commercial interests involved.

Ultimately they are part of the same achievement-oriented society we are, in which he use of stimulants has become normal. The appropriate response is not moral outrage, but a relaxing of the enormous pressure we put on them: Just do your best, kid. That’s all you can do.

OK, we understand the conclusions; however please present preceding arguments developed to support the conclusions rather than a roll call of popular press target medications.

PEDs, and medicines are simply molecules.  Molecules are not evil.  The use or abuse of the molecules is the issue.

Fitness champ Julie Coram retains law firm to fight steroid charges

We carried the story of fitness model Julie Coram from Canada, who won the Miss Manitoba Fitness title on May 31, and who tested positive for several anabolic steroids including the horse steroid Equipose (boldenone).  She also reportedly tested positive for oxandrolone, (Anavar) and the weak androgen DHEA.  Now, Ms Coram hired a law firm to represent her interests in this controversy.  Story carried in her local newspaper -- the Selkirk Journal.  (note the active controversy ensuing after our prior post on the event)

Julie Coram’s reign as Miss Fitness Manitoba may be going from the stage to the courts.
The former Selkirk resident has employed the services of New York law firm Collins, McDonald & Gann to defend her rights in a drug test dispute after allegedly testing positive for steroids at a physique competition in May.

In a press release forwarded to the Selkirk Journal Monday, attorney Michael J. DiMaggio claims the positive drug test administered at the Ainsley McSorley FAME Model Search Championships were unreliable and have damaged his client’s reputation.

“We’re just beginning to look at the facts of this case but our initial examination reveals a testing process that is so vague and lacking in controls that the results are profoundly suspect,” DiMaggio said.

Coram, who was named 2008 Miss Fitness Manitoba at the Manitoba Amateur Body Building Association provincial championship on May 31, was tested after winning the female muscle model category at the FAME event one week earlier.

The FAME World Tour promotes itself as a natural fitness circuit along with its sanctioning body, the World Natural Sports Organization. Coram was reportedly red flagged by FAME judges who asked for a urine sample.

It now appears there is controversy about the testing procedure.  Once again, forensics rears it's ugly statutory head.

According to FAME anti-doping officials, Coram was found to have three steroids or steroid derivatives in her system, including one sometimes used to treat injured horses.

Once test results were confirmed by the World Natural Sports Organization, Coram was stripped of her FAME title, her pro card and banned from competition by the WNSO.

Coram remains Miss Fitness Manitoba however, at least for the time being. Because she wasn’t tested at the provincial event – and because the FAME results weren’t known before she was crowned Miss Manitoba – the MABBA is awaiting legal advice on whether to accept the FAME results. They have turned the matter over to the Canadian Body Building Federation and the sport’s national governing body, the Canadian Centre of Ethics in Sport.
MABBA competitors are part of a pool of individuals who could be tested randomly at any time by the CCES. The MABBA tests only randomly however due to the expense – reportedly $400 per test.

MABBA officials have openly questioned the FAME test’s validity, a stance that was mirrored in DiMaggio’s press release.

“Elite amateur organizations like the IOC, CBBF and IFBB could hardly take these results seriously,” DiMaggio said.

(more after the jump) (We will also check to see if the anabolic androgens are metabolites of any supplements.)

NFL prospect Heath Benedict died of irregular heartbeat; enlarged heart and drugs (Viagra) noted

Heath Benedict, a small college big time football player found dead at his home last March, appears to raise many questions.  At 6-6 and 320 pounds, any NFL prospect draws attention to possible steroid use, An early death compounds the concerns.  At the time this was said (USA Today)

Heath Benedict, a two-time Little All-American offensive lineman at Newberry College in South Carolina, was found dead on a couch in his Jacksonville home.

Jacksonville police said no foul play is suspected in the death of the 24-year-old Benedict, a 6-6, 326-pounder who finished up his senior season in the fall and left school to train for next month's NFL draft. He was nine hours short of a business degree.

Benedict took part in the Senior Bowl in January, the first Division II player to do so since 2004, and was invited to last month's NFL combine.

"He was a big, tough man, but he had a very gentle heart," Newberry president Mick Zais said. "He was a teddy bear."

Benedict, who redshirted at Tennessee in 2002 before moving to Newberry, was a native of the Netherlands. He played high school football at the Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J.

More than a gentle heart - an enlarged heart with an irregular heartbeat.  What might cause cardiac hypertrophy?  A congenital condition, or drug use.  Drugs like anabolic steroids or more notoriously HGH can enlarge the heart, thus causing major problems.  And what was found at Benedict's house?  These drugs (The State):

Former Newberry College football standout Heath Benedict died of an irregular heartbeat caused by an enlarged heart, according to the Duval County Medical Examiner’s Office in Jacksonville, Fla.

The report also reveals a syringe and three bottles were found near his body on March 26. One of the bottles contained water, but the other two were labeled “L-Via” and “L-Dex,” liquid forms of the drugs Viagra and Arimidex.

Deputy chief medical examiner Jessie Giles made it clear Benedict’s death was caused by dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart-muscle disease that leads to a fatal irregular heartbeat. However, Giles said the role Viagra, an erectile dysfunction medication, and Arimidex, an anabolic steroid used by post-menopausal breast cancer patients to reduce estrogen levels, could not be determined.

“The role, if any, of anabolic steroid or other similar drug/preparation use ... is unknown and beyond the scope of this office,” Giles wrote in the report.

The newspaper distorted the facts somewhat.  Arimidex (anastrozole) is not an anabolic steroid, however is a masking agent or an anti-estrogen drug.  It acts by inhibiting conversion of androgenic steroids to estrogen, thus reducing side effects like enlarged breasts.

Injections of Viagra and Arimidex is somewhat bizarre.  Was this player attempting to maximize his NFL potential, yet trying to avoid detection at dope testing?

Stories recently centered on Viagra as PED, apparently used by big time drug-cheat Roger Clemens.  (Sporting News).  Listen to this quote attributed to Clemens:

Roger Clemens, among other athletes, used Viagra to improve their athletic performance, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

Clemens got the pills -- which are not banned by Major League Baseball -- from a teammate and kept them in a GNC vitamin bottle in his locker, according to an anonymous source cited by the newspaper. He also reportedly told a friend that the drug made him feel flushed and made his heart race. 

The newspaper also quotes BALCO founder Victor Conte as saying, "All my athletes took it," in reference to a Viagra-like drug.

The drug and its over-the-counter substitutes reportedly have numerous off-label uses. These include helping build endurance and delivering oxygen, nutrients and performance-enhancing drugs to muscles more efficiently.

Researchers at universities across the country are now trying to determine whether anecdotal evidence that Viagra aids in training and improves performance is based in scientific fact.

Heart racing?  Perhaps leading to cardiac arrhythmias in an athlete who might have primed his heart with anabolics?  This isn't good.  More on the topic later...

Add#1We added a continuation of the State article which stated that Benedict showed "two puncture wounds in his arm, which isn't consistent with anabolic steroids.

Add#2:  We found a research study where Arimidex increased testosterone in 'elderly men' from about 375 to 575.  Not a bad increase.  The mechanism appears to be by blocking the negative feedback from estrogen on LH/FSH or GNRH release in the pituitary.

 

Growth Hormone: New biomarkers, and calls for more regulation

First we go to News-Net Medical for a report on the search for new biomarkers, that may be useful in the anti-doping crusade.  Investigators have been looking at proteins that change when exogenous HGH is administered.  Biomarker detection would aid a regulatory agency like WADA when trying to detect drug cheats l ike Marion Jones, who abused HGH on the way to her discredited Olympic medals.  (Update: The debate about the performance enhancing effectiveness of HGH continues on)

Researchers have found potential new biomarkers for growth hormone, which they say could help the sports community in detecting growth hormone abuse. The results of the animal study will be presented at The Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

Many athletes are misusing recombinant human growth hormone, a drug intended for people who are growth hormone deficient, because of its supposed ability to decrease fat and increase muscle. However, detection remains a challenge. The growth hormone drug appears only briefly in blood and is identical to the growth hormone that the body naturally makes, said study coauthor John Kopchick, PhD, of Ohio University.

"Variability is a problem with current testing for growth hormone doping," Kopchick said. "It is gender and age-sensitive. We're looking for a test that will give standard results for everyone."

The authors are attempting to identify proteins in the blood that could be biomarkers for growth hormone action. A biomarker is a substance that can be detected in higher-than-normal amounts in the blood, urine, or body tissues and thus could be used for screening.

A bookmarker would alert authorities that doping has occurred.  For instance the decrease in LH seen when testosterone is administered would be considered a biomarker.

Kopchick's group injected six male mice with growth hormone once a day for a week and also injected six male mice with saline, to serve as controls. On the eighth day they determined the protein changes in the blood of all mice.

Several proteins or their isoforms (genetic variants or protein sub-populations that are modified differently) greatly increased or decreased in the growth hormone-treated mice, compared with controls, the authors reported. They included transthyretin, clusterin, albumin, and apolipoprotein A-1 (apoA1).

If the results translate to humans, these proteins have the potential to be new biomarkers for growth hormone action, according to Kopchick. Regulatory agencies could use new biomarkers for growth hormone in their attempts to halt the abuse of this drug among athletes, he said.

"Extension of these results to humans is of paramount importance, and these studies are ongoing," he said.

The second report originated with a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where Dr. Thomas Perls describes the huge anti-aging industry's use of HGH.  Dr. Perls will point out that HGH use in Anti-aging is entirely unresearched, and potentially dangerous.  To Science Daily:

Since their previous article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2005 on the clinical and legal aspects of growth hormone for anti-aging, in which researchers from Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago alerted the medical community and lay public to the deceptive mass marketing and illegal distribution of growth hormone for anti-aging and athletic enhancement, the authors provide new evidence demonstrating that these deceptive and dangerous activities have grown worse.

Remarks Dr. Thomas Perls, Director of the New England Centenarian Study and an associate professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, who has monitored the anti-aging industry for over the past ten years, "despite the overwhelming evidence that the risks and dangers of growth hormone far outweigh the clinically demonstrated insignificant benefit in normally aging individuals, the prescribing, distribution and sale of hGH for alleged anti-aging aesthetic and athletic enhancement has dramatically grown over the past few years. Clearly, the coordinated and aggressive marketing campaigns of the anti-aging and age-management industries are highly and most unfortunately effective."...

Contrary to published claims, neither long-term safety nor health benefits have been demonstrated in normally aging individuals taking hGH. A review of clinical studies among healthy, normally aging individuals found that hGH supplementation does not significantly increase muscle strength or aerobic exercise capacity. However, documented adverse effects include soft tissue edema, arthralgias (joint pains), carpal tunnel-like syndrome, gynecomastia (enlarged breasts) and insulin resistance with an elevated risk of developing diabetes. Increasingly more and more animal and laboratory studies suggest an increased cancer risk.

Dr Perls came up with the following recommendations:

The authors suggest that several measures need to be taken to address the inappropriate distribution and use of hGH.

Among their recommendations:

• The public must be accurately informed by physicians and scientists who do not have a vested interest in hGH, about health risks, fraudulent marketing and illegal distribution of this drug.
• Organizations that promote or indirectly profit from the medically inappropriate and illegal distribution of hGH that have been accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to offer American Medical Association Physician Recognition Award (PRA) category 1 CME credits or other categories of CME credit should, at a minimum, have their accreditation revoked.
• U.S. manufacturers of hGH must be more effective in, and held accountable for, controlling the distribution of the drug to companies providing the drug for illegal uses.
• Congressional hearings and media attention surrounding hGH should focus less on athletes and prominent entertainers who are also victims of deceptive marketing and pushing of hGH, and much more on the distributors who are violating federal and state laws by making the drug available for non-approved uses.

Doc and Ditka damn NFL dalliance on disabled vets; Say steroid use contributes to health disabilities

Mike Ditka tends to speak up on issues; we reported his dissatisfaction concerning the NFL's poor handling of gridiron health issues.  Ditka and wounded NFL vets claim the NFL drags feet when it comes to taking care of football-related injuries and disabilities of aged NFL veterans.  Ditka found new allies in tough talking doctors with serious charges about the NFL and the NFL Players Association. The docs say PEDs will make the entire demeaning situation worse over the upcoming years. To the New York Daily News.

...Simpson (is) an obesity expert who has a stake in the physician-owned Surgical Specialty Hospital of Arizona. "I saw guys who couldn't walk and guys who could barely walk, and I thought it was disgraceful how these guys have been abandoned by the NFL and the Players Association."

Simpson (who met Ditka at a Gridiron Great's function)and officials from OAA Orthopedic Specialists in Allentown, Pa., will be in Chicago on Tuesday to announce they are teaming up with Gridiron Greats to offer free health care - including spine surgery, joint replacement, pain management, obesity counseling and physical therapy - to the ailing and financially strapped ex-players.

Gridiron Greats will screen players for financial need, and then refer qualifying retirees to the Allentown and Phoenix facilities. Executive director Jennifer Smith hopes hospitals and medical groups near other NFL cities will offer their services, too.

Mike Ditka ain't happy.  EX-Dolphin Mercury Morris ain't so pleased himself:

"If I were the NFL, I'd be embarrassed," says former Dolphins running back Mercury Morris, who will take advantage of the program to determine if he needs surgery for wrist and knee injuries. "Why does it fall on these hospitals to provide the care the NFL and the union should be providing?"

Dr. Simpson implicates NFL team physicians in this mess; he's talking malpractice here:

Simpson wants to change the way the NFL looks at medicine: Team doctors, he says, are more worried about getting hurt players back on the field than treating injuries.

"Doctors that put players on the field that don't belong there, that's malpractice," Simpson says. "Doctors who shoot up players with cortisone and xylocaine so they can play, that's malpractice. We will report that to boards of medical examiners. There are clearly patterns of abuse here."

As for the steroid & PED business:

Simpson says he expects the number of NFL disabled to skyrocket in the near future because of performance-enhancing drugs.

"Steroids contribute to the overall injury patterns," he says. "You don't see as many injuries in older players as you do younger ones. We suspect there is a steroid component to that. People don't understand the impact these drugs can have long-term."

(more after the jump)

 

Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  Prince Fielder's power numbers are way down.  Not due to the the juice, but due to the juice, the fruit and vegetable juice. (Tuft's Daily)

2.  This blog post says ladies should not eat chicken...too many steroids injected in the Byrd wings.  There goes wings at Hooters (Love is Colorful)

3. More stringent tests for horses thinking of doping for the Olympics.  (Horse Deals)

4.  Harry Truman and the CIA started America doping (We know the Lies)

5.  Barry Bonds last home run ball fetches over 375,000. (Toledo Blade)

True Lies: Tammy Thomas convicted of perjury and obstruction

An angry Tammy Thomas heard San Francisco jurors convict her of lying to BALCO investigators this afternoon.  Thomas, who used so much anabolic steroid she needed to shave (? brand of shaving cream) her beard, grew hair on her cheat, lowered her voice, and grew her genitalia, deceived the investigators looking into the BALCO operation that snared a number of Bay Area and national elite athletes.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Former cyclist Tammy Thomas was convicted Friday of lying to a grand jury investigating a steroid distribution ring that has implicated some of the biggest stars in baseball, football and track.

Thomas, the first figure connected to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative case to go to trial, shouted at the jury after being found guilty of three counts of perjury and a count of obstruction of justice. She was acquitted of two counts of perjury.

Apparently not realizing she controlled her own destiny both when she took illegal anabolic drugs, and when she deceived investigators, Thomas -- a law student -- became visibly and orally angry at the pronouncement; now convicted it will be doubtful she would be accepted into a state bar.

"I already had one career taken away from me," she yelled, referencing her lifetime ban from cycling. "Look me in the eye. You can't do it."

Her father, who has sat in the front row of court during the two week trial, also raised his voice and said, "They can't do it."

Thomas then shouted and gestured at prosecutors: "Look me in the eye .... You like to destroy people's lives."

Thomas, who must have been bright enough to be accepted to law school, must not understand that her sentencing is on the docket.  Why become so aggressive in court?  Why show a temper to the judge who will sentence you?  Those androgens still working somewhere in the limbic lobe (in fact use of AAS affects limbic neurons)?

Legal experts said Thomas faces a prison sentence of between six months and several years. She is scheduled to be sentenced July 18...

The jury found Thomas guilty of falsely telling the grand jury that she had never taken steroids and had never received any performance-enhancing drugs from Arnold, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to making two undetectable steroids.

Thomas made her denials even though she was banned from cycling for life in August 2002 after the performance-enhancing drug Norbolethone was detected in her urine.

The drug, once an obscure steroid used in human tests in the 1960s, was rediscovered by Arnold, who supplied the Burlingame-based BALCO with undetectable performance-enhancing drugs.

Thomas's choices remain inexplicable.  Her choice of doping with extremely strong androgenic anabolic steroids led to virilizing side-effects.  Her choice of doping led to a lifetime ban from cycling.  She then choose to deceive investigators -- even when given immunity on front of the Grand Jury  Furthermore, one wonders if she wasn't given an opportunity for a plea bargain, rather than court.

All this adds up to some unsavory evidence of personality directions that look a wrong turn.  Cheating her competitors.  Ignoring the consequences of telling the truth even when given immunity.  Makes one wonder if the AASs affect judgment long after existing the body.

Barry Bonds, take notice...your lawyers did.

More Tammy Thomas posts here, here, here, here, and here.

Review from Stanford says HGH no benefit as PED

In a comprehensive review of HGH used as a PED (performance enhancing drug) a team at Stanford says that current evidence suggests no anabolic effect for the hormone.  (although this paper is called a study, it isn't; it is a review or meta-analysis of past papers)

Athletes who take human growth hormone may not be getting the boost they expected. While growth hormone adds some muscle, it doesn't appear to improve strength or exercise capacity, according to a review of studies that tested the hormone in mostly athletic young men.

"It doesn't look like it helps and there's a hint of evidence it may worsen athletic performance," said Dr. Hau Liu, of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., who was lead author of the review.

Growth hormone, or HGH, is among the performance enhancers baseball stars Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte were accused of taking in the blockbuster Mitchell Report. Clemens denies using the hormone, while Pettitte admits using it.

Will there be new studies of HGH as a PED?  Maybe, maybe not.

But the new research has some limitations and sheds no light on long-term use of HGH. The scientists note their analysis included few studies that measured performance. The tests also probably don't reflect the dose and frequency practiced by athletes illegally using the hormone. Experiments like that aren't likely to be conducted.

"It's dangerous, unethical and it's never going to be done," said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine.

There were significant differences noted with HGH, in the analysis.  Lean body mass increased in the HGH subjects.  Strength (measured in the studies) did not increase in the HGH subjects.  However side effects became more prominent with HGH use -- edema (tissue swelling) and and joint aches (like carpel tunnel syndrome).

As we pointed out in the Huffington Post, HGH by itself may not be anabolic.  There is evidence that the hormone is synergistic with anabolic steroids (or insulin or T4), which means that the effects of these hormones add to each other.  Further, we don't know the effects of the drugs on the most genetically gifted athletes - professionals.

However, a study is a study.  HGH by itself in these doses used in young healthy men does not appear to be an impressive anabolic drug.

 

Catching-up: gene doping, Florida steroids and more

Here are a few commentaries from last week we need to note:

1.  in 'Designing Improved Humans', Henry Miller, M.D., discusses performance enhancement's march to gene doping:

The well-publicized use by athletes of performance-enhancing drugs including androgenic steroids and human growth hormone has gotten more people than ever before thinking and talking about the subject. But the issue is neither new nor limited to a small number of people...

Technology will soon offer even more extreme possibilities for enhancement. Scientists, using gene therapy to increase the levels of a single enzyme, recently created a strain of mice with increased physical abilities by genetically altering a gene that affects metabolism. By injecting an active form of the gene PEPCK-C into an embryo, the scientists found that the mouse more efficiently burns body fat for energy and produces less lactic acid during exercise...

These experiments have reinvigorated a long-running debate about the ethics of creating designer humans. “We’re in an era when breakthroughs in biology and intelligence are outpacing the culture’s capacity to deal with the ethics,” said Joe Tsien, Ph.D., the Princeton University molecular biologist who directed the development of a “smart mouse” almost a decade ago. “There will be issues of access and who can afford it and whether the social wealthy class will have the intellectual advantage over poor people.” As though attending M.I.T. instead of Florida A&M doesn’t confer an intellectual advantage.

Artificial enhancement was also addressed in the Sports Illustrated article here.

2:  The Broward-Palm Beach New Times looks at the HGH-promoting Anti-aging clinics in Florida.  The article begins idyllically:

Grass doesn't get any greener than on major-league baseball's spring training fields. It's the annual dawn of each season, when vivacious young hopefuls play catch with millionaire all-stars. That was the scene on a February morning at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Then turns incongruously ironic:

One year ago, this citadel of major-league baseball wasn't so serene. Investigators contend that South Florida is not just a popular spring training destination but also the epicenter of a nationwide network distributing illicit prescription steroids and human growth hormones.

To follow a minor league player, juicing through an Anti-aging clinic.

J says he paid about $1,000 per stack. A "stack" is a combination of steroids and HGH that comes as a package. It's generally used for a one-month workout cycle. When his first stack arrived, he says, he called a number he had for Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center to figure out how to use it. "I didn't want to inject the wrong thing — this into that or in the wrong order or whatever, and have something bad happen." The conversation was awkward initially, but he got the information he needed.

Near the television in his apartment, J has a photo of himself and two friends posing in a weight room. He was a late-round draft pick out of high school only a few years ago. The signing bonus offered to him was less than $100,000, but it was enough for him to decide to forgo college (and scholarship eligibility) and move straight into rookie-league ball, the bottom of the minor leagues. He had mild success his first season but got hurt halfway through. He was injured again early into his second season.

Reminds us of the story yesterday documenting a minor league draftee testing positive for a PED.

This is a very well researched piece; it should go into the reference bank of Anti-aging clinic performance-enhancement doping.

GAT Rocket fuel? Jose Canseco now joins GAT as 'expert'

GAT  -- German American Technologies, one more sports supplementation clone company -- says that Jose Canseco will be coming aboard as an 'expert' in nutrition and performance.  We suppose when you market a line of me-too supplementation products that offer little or no benefit, you need some celebrity endorsements to gain an edge.  Worked for BALCO didn't it.

STAMFORD, CT--(Marketwire - March 12, 2008) -  GAT (German American Technologies) recently signed baseball superstar and fitness expert José Canseco as its newest spokesperson.  Mr. Canseco is long known for his batting prowess during a career that most sports experts reflect upon as stellar, including his well-earned MVP status.  Canseco is among the company's growing roster of athletes benefiting from use of premier GAT supplements Jetfuel, Sonic Pump, XC4 and new Testagen.

Who would these 'sports experts' be who feel Canseco's career might be 'steller'?  Mike Greenwell, who recently dissed Canseco, feeling a juicer like Canseco cheated him out of honors?

Canseco has made no secret that he believes pro-hormonal steroids are actually a natural part of a healthy bodybuilding lifestyle. As noted in part one of his autobiography, the 2005 Juiced, he credits himself with popularizing use of performance-enhancing steroids to baseball, fueling the rise to stardom of many 1990s players now regarded as legendary. His eagerly awaited, soon-to-be released part two, Vindicated, is expected to hit bookstores on opening day 2008.

Steroids aside, GAT is leveraging Mr. Canseco's expertise in sports performance and exercise on a wide spectrum of supplementation enhancements.  Charles Moser, president and CEO of GAT, states, "José Canseco has proven himself over several decades to be an able teacher about enhancing bodybuilding and fitness regimens.  He is a no-nonsense authority who has a positive insight on bodybuilding supplementation.  As a member now of our expanding TeamGAT roster, we expect José to bring a vibrant, constructive message to the global bodybuilding community and sports on the benefits of non-steroidal sports nutrition.

Has Canseco ever discussed 'pro-hormonal' steroids?   Forget these products, just eat a bunch of eggs with the 'pro-hormonal steroid' cholesterol  in abundance.

And when did Canseco prove himself to be an 'able teacher about enhanced bodybuilding and fitness regimens'?  To Roger Clemens at parties?  To Juan Gone, and to Raffy Palmeiro?

GAT is renowned world wide for its quality performance supplementation products. Its products include its flagship Jetfuel, the premier fat burner and energy booster; Testagen, its groundbreaking premium testosterone amplifier; Sonic Pump, its continuous nitric oxide booster; XC4, its superb creatine ethyl ester matrix, and Testrol, its wildly popular anabolic testosterone potency activator.

'Wildly popular anabolic testosterone potency activator'?  Let's see the research on that claim.  And if it is so wildly popular why does the company need Canseco to shill for them?