Insulin as a performance enhancer

paulorg

Having got my bikeradar email this week I noticed the bit abount Contador not being welcome in Germany due to the Op Puerto thing. In the list of performance enhancing drugs he may or may not have taken, Insulin is mentioned. I'm an Insulin Dependant Diabetic and my Insulin has never helped me enhance my performance, if I'm not careful it wipes out my blood sugar and leaves me with no energy at all, what I want to know is how the hell can you use Insulin to improve your performance? I'm aware that it has been used in weightlifting to promote muscle growth with its anabolic properties but surely muscle development on that scale would only be inhibitive in cycling, why is it used, does anybody who can put it into words of 3 syllables or less know?

Paul

greif

I found this online:
Insulin, when used as a performance enhancer, works to slow down the degradation of muscle tissue, which is attractive to such athletes as bodybuilders especially when they are also doping with a growth hormone. For endurance athletes, cyclists and runners, for example, insulin provides fuel for muscle cells and improves stamina. Although the prevalence of insulin doping is not known, luggage seizures at airports and testimonials from formerly doped athletes suggest that the abuse of this hormone is a real problem.

Additionally, there are multiple hormones used by both male and female cyclists that are either not tested for or perfectly masked. Women especially will deal in hormones and steroids, since their races are not long enough to require EPO or blood transfusions.

hope this sheds a bit of light on the subject......

ut_och_cykla

My understanding is that insulin circulating in the blood (released by glands in the body in response to a rise in blood sugar brought on by a meal) allows the body's cells to 'open' up and let in glucose to be stored for later use.

Without insulin (diabetes) the glucose levels rise to a dangerous level possibly eventually causing coma and death. Exercise will use up the glucose but only slowly in comparison to the effect of insulin.

Adding insulin by injection allows the glucose to be taken up by the cells and glucose levels to return to a normal level. This is what diabetics use insulin for. When you use too much there is not enough glucose circulating in the blood and you feel awful. A small intake of something sugary is usually needed to correct this.

Obviously in non-diabetics this could be used to greatly speed up and maximise the uptake of glucose from the blood in readiness for another hard endurance session - carbohydrate loading taken to extremes - and which presumably needs the addition of glucose to ensure the maximum effect.

Hope this is right & understandable

Kléber

There's also IGF-1, or insulin-like growth factor. It's a growth hormone that has been used as a doping product, I remember its name has cropped up.

paulorg

Thanks for all that boys and girls, I find it scary that non diabetics would even consider using insulin when as a diabetic myself I know what its like to have low sugar when trying to exercise, the potential for OD is massive and the consequences could be fatal in an endurance sport, hypo's sneak up on me and I know what to look for. Dopers are dopes. Sorry.