Ethical differences in testosterone doping tests cannot be ignored
When a research was published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, surprising facts in relation to testosterone doping tests came out. It was found that the presently implemented steroid tests to caught sportsmen using testosterone or its alternatives are of no use due to the fact that ethnical differences among sportsmen tend to give a wrong picture.
It is worth noting here that testosterone and various other hormones propelling the levels of testosterone in the human body like growth hormone have been abused by sportsmen since long as performance enhancing drugs in sports.
From News-Medical.Net:
They included 57 men of Black African origin; 32 of Asian origin; 32 of Hispanic origin; and 50 of white (Caucasian) origin in their research. All the men were aged between 18 and 36.
The results revealed the genetic variation in almost one in four (22%) of the African footballers; in eight out 10 (81%) of the Asian players; one in 10 of the white men, and in 7% of the Hispanic players.
Based on these findings, the Swiss researchers “recalibrated” the thresholds for each ethnic group.
The new T:E ratios were: 5.6 for men of African origin; 5.7 for white men, and 5.8 for men of Hispanic origin. For men of Asian origin, the ratio was 3.8.
A single indiscriminate threshold to pick up steroid abuse in international sport is “not fit for purpose,” the authors conclude. Instead, the reference ranges should be tailored to an athlete’s individual endocrinological (hormonal) passport, they suggest.
“[Such a] passport may detect modifications induced by abuse of testosterone and its precursors, but also alterations in the steroid profile caused by indirect androgen doping products,” they conclude.
These findings were revealed after tests were conducted on steroid profiles of many football players belonging to ethnicities after a deliberate attempt to add steroids to their urine samples was made.
