TEST YOUR OLYMPICS HEALTH SKILLS
Do you know what “cupping” is?
As I’ve been watching the Olympic Games taking place in Rio de Janeiro, lots of questions have popped into my mind. In addition to the usual “How in the world can people be so strong/fast/coordinated?” thoughts, I’ve had my fair share of health-related head scratchers. Are you game for a special gold medal-themed edition of Body Work?
Dr. Prescott prescribes
For a moment there, I thought you were going to challenge me to a few laps around the track. But in this kind of contest, I at least stand a chance of reaching the podium. So I accept your challenge. On your mark, get set, go! What exactly is “doping”? Doping is a catchall term for the use of performance-enhancing drugs. What drugs depends on what sports — or even specific events within a sport.
In 2014, the World Anti-Doping Agency processed 186,000 blood samples, and slightly fewer than 1 percent came back as positive or suspicious. Of those, the most common by far were anabolic agents, which are hormones including anabolic steroids that increase muscle mass and strength.
The state-sponsored doping program that led to bans
in Rio for many Russian athletes, including the entire track and field team, centered on anabolic drugs.
These are especially favored by athletes in strength sports like weightlifting and wrestling and ones that require explosive speed (think sprinting or shortdistance swimming). But they’ve turned up across the full range of Olympic sports, including sailing and fencing.
Stimulants first appeared at the 1936 Olympics. Eighty years later, sprinters and others who count on having quick reaction times continue to use substances like amphetamines (which can also be found in prescription drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, aka ADHD) to get an edge on the competition.
Cyclists, marathoners and other endurance athletes have resorted to various methods to increase their red blood cell count, which boosts the muscles’ ability to draw oxygen from the blood. Currently, the two most common forms of blood doping are extremely small doses of erythropoietin (EPO) and blood transfusions. Microdoses of EPO are extremely difficult to detect, and there is no test that can directly show when an athlete has reinfused his or her own blood.
And there are other substances that can give competitors an unfair advantage in just about every sport, including shooting and archery!
At a recent international meet, in an anonymous survey, 29 percent of athletes admitting to doping. So, despite the fact that we’ve developed increasingly sophisticated tests to identify cheaters, there remains a big gap between those cheating and those getting caught (fewer than 1 percent).
BILLY GRAHAM
In addition to the usual risks (waves, jellyfish), the water in Rio is also heavily polluted. It carries levels of bacteria and viruses that, if swallowed even in small amounts, could sicken the athletes.
Suggestions have ranged from keeping heads above water to pre-dosing with antibiotics. The former will not happen, and the latter would protect only against bacteria, not viruses, and the medications could also inhibit performance.
Fortunately, the viruses that have been seen at the highest levels seem (knock on wood) not to pose life-threatening dangers. But I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of severe gastric distress in the Olympic Village in the days following those races.
First, a little perspective: Only about 1 in 10 competitors get hurt at any given Summer Olympics. And at the 2012 London Games, roughly two-thirds of the injuries were minor enough that athletes didn’t miss any days of training or competition.
That said, in London, the sports that boasted the highest injury rates were soccer, BMX, team handball and taekwondo. Taekwondo had the dubious distinction of boasting the highest rate of fractures (almost 5 percent) as well as dislocations or ruptures to tendons and ligaments (3 percent). Judging from the bone-crunching crashes that took place in Rio, I suspect that when they run the numbers for 2016, road cycling will also join that list.
The bruiselike spots you saw on Michael Phelps and other swimmers are the residue of an ancient Chinese healing practice. Known as cupping, it’s a technique in which specialized suction cups are applied to the body in an effort to speed muscle recovery.
Two small studies (one on subjects with chronic neck pain, the other arthritis) have shown that those who underwent cupping felt less pain after the treatment than those who were not treated or were treated with an alternative method. Still, were I a bettor, I’d attribute any difference to that old standby: the placebo effect.
Regardless, I doubt it’s harmful. And if suction cups work for the guy who’s now won more gold medals than any athlete in history, who am I to argue?