Viva Viagra: A rise for athletic peak performance or an impotent placebo?

Is Viagra getting top athletes up for peak performance?  Or is ithe  frug one more impotent PED placebo sham?

Recent stories concerning the use of Viagra by multi-drug cheat Roger Clemens and others raises the question: Does Viaga stimulate athletic performance?  The drug could be a legal PED as WADA does not prohibit sildenafil as a performance enhancing drug.

A new story by the Times Online looks more at the potential of sildenafil citrate -- Viagra -- to get athletes up and going for competition.

Athletes are turning to a new performance enhancing drug: Viagra. Traces of the drug, which is intended to alleviate sexual dysfunction, are increasingly appearing in the testing of samples from sports competitors.

It has become so widespread that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) is considering whether to include Viagra in its list of substances banned in international sports.

Christiane Ayotte, head of a Wada-accredited laboratory in Montreal, said she regularly identifies Viagra and Cialis, a similar product, in the urine of male sports competitors. No action is taken because it is not illegal.

“Each time there is a seizure of banned drugs you can be sure that there’s Viagra and Cialis found as well,” she said.

The New York Daily News said this about Viagra:

Roger Clemens, whose claims he never took steroids are under federal investigation, has apparently discovered the benefits of another performance-enhancing drug sweeping the sports world - Viagra.

Clemens stashed the clearly marked, diamond-shaped pills in a GNC vitamin bottle in his locker at Yankee Stadium, according to a source familiar with the clubhouse, perhaps keeping the drug undercover to avoid the inevitable wisecracks about all the girlfriends he needed to please.

The Telegraph makes claims for the drug's benefit in both explosive and endurance sports -- like sprinting and cycling:

Experts believe Viagra could help in events requiring explosive power, such as sprinting. The drug works by dilating blood vessels allowing more blood to reach the penis. This action could also allow more oxygen and nutrients to reach muscles.

Other experts suggest the drug, which allows couples to have longer sex sessions, could also help with endurance sports, like marathons and cycling.

Don Catlin, an American expert on doping, said he had suggested several years ago that Viagra could be used to enhance athletic performance.

"I thought there was some reason to be concerned about it and to put it on [Wada's banned] list," he told the Sunday Times newspaper.

A study of cyclists who took sildenafil citrate (the scientific name for Viagra) while racing at altitude found it reduced their time over 6km by 15 per cent.

PED 'expert' Victor Conte endorses NO enhancers (as noted in the comment below):

Victor Conte, who ran the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative in San Francisco and supplied banned substances to top competitors, such as Marion Jones and Dwain Chambers, the runners, has claimed of Viagra: “All my athletes took it. It’s bigger than creatine [a legal muscle-building supplement]”.

There may be another reason athletes are taking Viagra – to compensate for the impotence brought on by using banned hormones.

Ya gotta get up for Victor Conte endorsement, eh?

(more after the jump including Viagra studies at the University of Miami)

The University of Miami currently conducts clinical studies on the benefit of Viagra in cycling.  To the Miami Post:

Scientists at the University of Miami are studying whether sildenafil citrate can improve the speed of cyclists riding at altitude. The World Anti-Doping Agency is funding the two-year project to determine if Viagra should be added to the list of banned drugs in sports, joining steroids, human growth hormone and EPO.

At a lab on the Coral Gables campus, cyclists swallow a 50-milligram Viagra pill or placebo, step onto a stationary bike, warm up, then pedal at race pace for 3.6 miles while breathing oxygen-reduced air that simulates the effect of riding on a 12,800-foot mountain.

The Tour de Romance? No. None of the subjects has had an erection.

''If they did, they're wearing Spandex shorts anyway,'' said senior research associate Mark Stoutenberg, who is used to joking about his experiment. 'It's a great topic of conversation at parties -- `Hey, this guy is testing Viagra.' ''

Viagra causes dilation of the blood vessels, working on receptors in the lungs and genitalia. But it won't cause an erection without stimulation.

Appears everyone waits to see if Viagra is the real deal in doping, or just one more impotent placebo.

Comments

[Millard Baker]

Just for the sake of accuracy, Victor Conte did NOT say all his athletes took Viagra. Once again, the press takes a statement out of context.

Conte was actually speaking about the over-the-counter sport nutrition supplements called nitric oxide boosters, NOT Viagra.

Here is the original Conte quote with appropriate context from NYDN.

"All my athletes took it," BALCO founder Victor Conte, whose acolytes included Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, said of an over-the-counter supplement he claimed mimicked the effects of Viagra.

"It's bigger than creatine. It's the biggest product in nutritional supplements."

The Times Online got it wrong in its enthusiasm to accuse athletes of using yet another performance enhancing drug.

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