Steroids & performance

Even a small dose of testosterone is enough to boost athletes performance, says a study.

Scientists at the Southern Cross University in New South Wales have found that even a small dose of testosterone is enough to boost athletes performance. The finding has reinforced calls for drug-testing regimes to be radically stepped up.

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As against the earlier belief that testosterone must be injected weekly for at least 10 weeks to yield results, researchers found that the biggest increase in performance came after just three weeks.

Taking steroids for short periods only, taking smaller doses, or doing both, would reduce the chances of athletes getting caught by drugs testers.

"Athletes have probably already figured this out, and we are just confirming that scientifically," Randall Urban of the University of Texas at Austin was quoted by New Scientist as saying.

According to researchers testing for testosterone is difficult. In the case of synthetic steroids only their presence has to be proved but because testosterone is a natural hormone, its detection becomes difficult and presence of abnormally high levels of the steroid is the only way to identify drug use.

However, if athletes or coaches have learned by trial and error to use low doses for short periods only, there is less chance of them being caught.

"What we really need to do is collect data on individual athletes frequently and over a prolonged period of time to build up testosterone profiles, so that we can explain why they have changes and what their normal levels are," David Cowan of the Drugs Control Centre at King's College London was quoted as saying.

"We want to catch the cheats, but we also want to get away from pointing the finger at athletes without any proof," he added.