The Energizer Bunny Effect

Should athletes who take steroids be banned for life?

That question is posed in an interesting story titled "Cheaters Do Prosper" in the Wall Street Journal today. Researchers in Sweden have found evidence that "suggests that anyone who takes steroids, even once, may effectively be a cheater for life."

"When the researchers looked at the subjects' muscles through a microscope, they made a surprising discovery: Rather than returning to their original proportions, the muscles of the steroid users who'd stopped taking the drug looked remarkably similar to those of the subjects who were still using. They also had larger muscle fibers and more growth-inducing "myonuclei" in their muscle cells than the nonsteroid users."

"A scientific consensus on this issue may be a long way off. The Swedish study was too small to be definitive, and it's difficult (for obvious reasons) to do a large follow-up study on the effects of steroids on competitive athletes. Some studies done in the past decade have shown that while the muscles of mice grow when they are given steroids, they also shrink when the drugs are taken away. Gary Wadler, a New York University physician who consults with WADA on steroid issues, says he isn't convinced that the conclusions are accurate. "The effects of steroids are time-limited," he says."

It will be interesting to see how this develops in the future. Right now there's not enough evidence to know if it's even an issue, but if it were proven to be true, can you imagine how it would change the playing field?