Can Asthma Inhalers Enhance Athletic Performance?
My latest story for Wired Playbook highlights new research that investigates whether the common asthma medication, salbutamol/albuterol, could enhance athletic performance when taken in extremely large doses.
My latest story for Wired Playbook highlights new research that investigates whether the common asthma medication, salbutamol/albuterol, could enhance athletic performance when taken in extremely large doses.
A research team led by Jimmi Elers at the Respiratory Research Unit at Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen was curious: Although taking a few puffs of salbutamol hasn’t shown a performance boost in past studies, what would a dose that’s, say, 40 times higher than normal do to lung function? And with higher amounts of the drug running through their bodies, would the over-the-top dose cause athletes to hit the upper limit enforced by the new WADA standards when they’re forced to undergo a urine-screening test before competition?
Image via Flickr / Neil T
Elers, J., Mørkeberg, J., Jansen, T., Belhage, B., & Backer, V. (2010). High-dose inhaled salbutamol has no acute effects on aerobic capacity or oxygen uptake kinetics in healthy trained men Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2010.01251.x
Stress Hormones and Competition
I just finished my first post for Wired Playbook, which talks about the hormonal changes that occur in the body during competition. Whether the hormones levels increase or decrease may give some insight into the psychological readiness of a contender.
I just finished my first post for Wired Playbook, which talks about the hormonal changes that occur in the body during competition. Whether the hormones levels increase or decrease may give some insight into the psychological readiness of a contender.
Armed with cotton swabs coated with pulverized Sweet Tarts candy, researchers took saliva samples minutes before two monkeys engaged in a staged competition for a pile of food. When dominant males won, there was a clear increase in the stress hormone right before the competition. In these cases, the dominant male was ready. He had sized up his opponent and knew, no doubt, that he’d prevail.
Conversely, when the dominant male lost, the hormone level decreased before the food game. Although these apes live in very well-defined social societies – and the dominant male had more than likely battled with this opponent before and won – something had psyched him out.
Read the full post here.