The proprietors of EDS-Research.com, a research chemical company, were arrested for selling research chemicals in what authorities have sensationalized as a “shocking international drug operation in a small home in the Village of Reedsville.” It has also been identified as a “prescription drug repackaging operation” that imported drugs from China with a daily revenue of $1000-2000. Manitowoc County Sheriff Rob Hermann was impressed by the research chemical operation moreso than any other drug operation that he’s seen in his career (”Police Raid Alleged Prescription Pill Lab,” October 30).
“A lot of equipment they had was large-scale manufacturing equipment, things that we would typically not see during the normal course of our business,” Detective Sergeant Pete McGinty of the Two Rivers Police Department said.
“In 25 years I’ve never seen such an operation. We’ve conducted search warrants in marijuana grow houses, crystal meth labs, meth cathedone manufacturing. I’ve never seen anything like this in 25 years,” Sheriff Hermann said.
The sheriff thought that ShonTay Dessart and his partner were selling “steroid-type” drugs from their house reflecting the widespread misconception that all ancillary drugs and performance enhancing drugs that are used by bodybuilders and athletes are anabolic steroids.
Wired Magazine identifies promising medical and pharmaceutical candidates that may represent the next generation of performance enhancement for Olympic athletes. As with any performance enhancing drug, bodybuilders are always the first guinea pigs to experiment with these drugs in the real world. After they receive the seal of approval from the bodybuilding community, the new drugs are ready for athletes in other professional sports where procedures are refined to avoid detection by anti-doping agencies. Here is a list of Wired’s top ten list they feel will represent the future of doping that almost make anabolic steroids obsolete
Scientists are optimistic about gene therapies significantly increasing muscle mass in humans. Gene therapy will be widespread in the sport of bodybuilding much as anabolic pharmacology has seen unrestricted experimentation over the past three decades in bodybuilding.
A few medical researchers are working to make laissez faire gene therapy a reality in bodybuilding. Actually, their intent is to create medical therapies for conditions such as muscular dystrophy, age-related sarcopenia, HIV and AIDS-related wasting, and cancer cachexia. But bodybuilders will clearly exploit the muscle-building potential of these therapies in the real-world laboratory of competitive bodybuilding.
These are the scientists that bodybuilders and athletes should watch…
Tercica announced that they just started a Phase II clinical trial examining the efficacy of IGF-1 stacked with human growth hormone (GH). Unfortunately for bodybuilders and athletes, the outcome measure in this study is not performance enhancement, increases in lean muscle mass, or loss in body fat.
The objective is to measure “height velocity” and safety in the treatment of short stature in children. The trial will examing the efficacy of three different stacks of GH + IFG-1 and compare them with GH alone (GH monotherapy).
Potential of GH/IGF-1 Combination Product: The combination product will be studied in children with short stature not associated with growth hormone deficiency, who also have low IGF-1 levels. A potential cause of short stature in this group of patients could be a suboptimal IGF-1 secretion in response to growth hormone stimulation alone. Pre-clinical studies suggest that co-administration of GH and IGF-1 may increase specific growth responses greater than growth hormone alone. Therefore, Tercica believes that treatment with a combination of both GH and IGF-1 may be superior to monotherapy of growth hormone alone in a subpopulation of children with low IGF-1 and short stature not associated with growth hormone deficiency.
Tercica is the biotechnology company that is the first to bring FDA-approved recombinant insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) to the marketplace. The brand name for IGF-1 is Increlex and the generic name is mecasermin.
It is interesting that discussion of the use of growth hormone and IGF-1 in athletes for performance enhancing purposes revolves around the extremely dangerous side effects of these drugs; efforts to prevent GH use in sports is often based on the dangers of the drugs and potential public health crisis they may cause.
Yet a news story about the therapeutic use of growth hormone and IGF-1 in children gets buried in the news.
