The following lesson activities are based on the article “Wave of Positive Tests for Meldonium Adds to Doping Crisis.”
Before Reading
What have you heard or read about last week’s announcement that Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam champion and the world’s highest-paid female athlete, had tested positive for the recently banned drug meldonium at the Australian Open? What do you know about other sports and athletes and the issue of doping?
After Reading
Answer the questions, supporting your responses by citing evidence from the text.
1.What is meldonium? What did Larry Bowers say about it back in early October?
2. How many athletes have tested positive for the drug so far this year?
3. What recent event brought worldwide attention to the issue?
4. What is the WADA?
5. When did the process of banning meldonium begin?
6. Who is Michael Pearlmutter?
7. Why does the WADA executive committee give a three-month window before officially banning a substance?
Going Further
In The Upshot column “Maria Sharapova and the Pharmaceutical Quest for an Edge,” Aaron E. Carroll writes:
It’s understandable that athletes at the highest end of the performance spectrum might look for any gain, any edge at all, that might help propel them to the top. Ego, fame and unbelievable amounts of money are at stake. But people all over the athletic spectrum are convinced that one supplement or another will make them healthier, faster or stronger, while other people seek a different sort of edge with drugs they hope will improve cognition.
Maria Sharapova made news this week when she was suspended for using the “performance-enhancing” drug meldonium. I put that in quotes for a reason. Most Americans had probably never heard of this drug, let alone considered that people would take it to improve their tennis game. But there are a lot of healthy people, probably even people you know, who use a drug intended for ill people because they think it will give them an edge.
Let’s start with meldonium. It works by increasing blood flow throughout the body. It’s mainly intended to treat ischemia, a condition that develops when parts of your body aren’t getting enough blood. Increased blood flow gets more oxygen moving around to muscles and other tissues.
Of course, if you’re moving more blood and oxygen around, muscles all over the body might be better able to perform. Although the research on healthy people using the drug isn’t easy to parse, you can find reports from medical conferences that recommend doses for athletes. One page in a Russian medical journal that is now defunct is often cited as evidence of meldonium’s ability to improve performance.
… At my YouTube channel, I field more questions about supplements than about anything else. People are convinced that if a little vitamin C helps to protect your immune system, then mega doses of it will help you ward off illness. They won’t. Almost none of what you’ve been told about supplements by trainers, videos or diets has been proved in consistent, robust trials. When we do such trials, the supplements often fail. If they succeeded, all health care professionals would be recommending them.
Additionally, supplements aren’t heavily regulated in the United States, so it’s shockingly likely that you aren’t even getting what you think you are.
One recent craze in this area concerns nootropics: drugs or supplements that are supposed to improve cognitive function. Some are serious stuff and have a use in medicine, as meldonium has with ischemia. Modafinil, used in the treatment of narcolepsy, and piracetam, for dementia, are two of the most popular. We could also include stimulants used to treat disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., in this group. Healthy people take these drugs to try to be brighter longer.
It’s important to note that these beneficial effects have been proved only in people who have deficits. It has not been substantiated that their use in normal people gives them a real cognitive boost. A small 2013 randomized controlled trial looked at how modafinil affected creativity in otherwise healthy individuals. The results were mixed and not very convincing.
Read the entire article, then write a response to it that addresses the connection it makes between professional athletes seeking an edge on the competition and non-athletes trying to ward off everything from the common cold to cognitive function decline via supplements that are not heavily regulated.
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