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Olympic Drug Testing

Dateline: 11/02/98

By Alan Bruzel

The 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico saw the introduction of athlete drug testing; four years later the first laboratory for comprehensive drug analysis was set up for the Munich Olympic Games. Today, there are twenty-three drug-testing laboratories approved by the International Olympic Committee. The approximately 300 substances examined are broken down into five main categories: anabolic steroids, analgesics, diuretics, peptide hormones, and stimulants.

Anabolic steroids such as testosterone are used to build muscle, analgesics (including narcotics such as morphine) allow injured athletes to continue training, diuretics increase urine production and thus decrease a drug's concentration in the analyzed urine sample, peptide hormones such as human growth hormone stimulate tissue growth, and stimulants (including high levels of caffeine) enhance endurance.

Anabolic steroids, analgesics, diuretics, and stimulants are amenable to separation on a gas chromatographic column followed by mass spectrometric detection. High-resolution mass spectrometry allows analysis of anabolic steroids at the part per billion level even when present in a complicated matrix such as urine. (High-resolution mass spectrometry resolves compounds using a gas chromatograph, then introduces these compounds into a mass spectrometer that further resolves these analytes before they are identified by a second mass spectrometer.) Corticosteroids, either given as is or induced in situ by the peptide hormone corticotrophin, are resolved by high-performance liquid chromatographs with mass spectrometer detectors. Banned peptide hormones are identified by immunoassays. All of these techniques are accurate, and results are available in only a few hours.

An unequivocal means of nabbing an athlete using a banned product is to identify a substance not produced naturally by the body. An example would be the presence of cocaine or amphetamine, or their metabolites. If one is to surreptitiously use a performance-enhancing material, then one should select a suitable, naturally produced substance. Testosterone is one such compound; this hormone occurs naturally and acts as an anabolic agent. To limit testosterone abuse, Olympic officials have set the allowable urinary ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (a normally occurring hormone that is not an anabolic steroid) at 6 to 1. (Most men have a 1 to 1 ratio, but some athletes have a naturally higher testosterone level.) This, of course, permits (male) athletes with a lower ratio to bulk up on testosterone until they reach the 6 to 1 limit. Another recourse available to athletes is to use a performance-enhancing drug not yet on the list of banned substances. Bromantan, a stimulant similar to mesocarb (which is banned), is one such example. The will to succeed in athletic performance thus engenders a tightly knit interplay between the synthetic chemists preparing new compounds, and the analytical chemists determined to detect them.

Recommended Web resources for additional information:

A New Banned Substance Makes its Olympic Debut
New drugs, including bromantan, used in the 1996 Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta. From The Physician and Sportsmedicine Online.

Manfred Donike Award
Given by Hewlett-Packard Company in recognition of Manfred Donike, an early developer of doping analysis for the International Olympic Committee. First award presented to D. de Boer who introduced drug testing of hair samples.

May the Best Drug Win!
Time.com article by Tim Blair and Rod Usher. Discussion of testosterone to epitestosterone ratios.

Olympic Facts: Drug Testing
Background information provided by the Australian Sports Commission.

Teaching Forensic Analytical Chemistry
Quick overview of chemical techniques used in analysis of forensic samples.

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