Anti-Hypertension drugs?

[Martinello]

@python - I'm a resident in urology, but used to do some internal medicine.

I think I've already commented on the timing stuff with the autologous blood transfusion, especially the dilemma with longer term storage of the blood (decreased quality, infections/impurities, shorter half life of RBCs post transfusion).
I don't have hard data to come up with the best scheme for donating/re-infusing blood. A lot of the stuff going on at Fuentes and 'garage clinics' implies a lot of risks and malpractice that we would never do in the clinic.

@animal:
wikipedia does it better than I do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrial_fibrillation

 

[Mongol_Waaijer]

What's atrial fibrillation? What are the symptoms? I've gone from massive training volume with some super high intensity work, to just riding to and from work, and I've noticed that my heart rhythm seems to "get it wrong" every now and again.

that's totally normal. I get it too. I have gone from 3 years of elite racing to running 3x a week.

as long as you are not blacking out, feeling dizzy, pains in chest etc you are fine.

Often I notice the arrythmic sensation is accompanied by stomach rumbling, and it may be imaginary even.

but stay active and "build down" is the advice i was given.

 

[dienekes88]

Long term androgen supplementation will probably increase blood pressure by regulating vascular tone and promoting atherosclerosis. Conversion of testosterone to estrogens may aggrevate the risk of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular morbidity. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)

The classic stimulants of the CNS (caffeine, amphetamine, ephedrine, cocain) all increase vascular tone with cocain being the ultimate badboy. Myocardial infarctions have been reported in 30 y-o's coke abusers. Betablockers may also be handy to alleviate the effect of these stimulants, ie. after training on amphetamines on a rainy day in Belgium.

Steroids cause increased systolic blood pressure and atherosclerosis.

So if you don't want to end up like Flo-Jo, take good care of your heart and arteries. Diuretics are on the no-no list, but in cycling you're good to do betablockers, ang-II antagonists, ace-inhibitors, anti-coagulants etc.

I would suspect that a bigger draw to anti-hypertensives might be to vasodilate the pulmonary vasculature. This is especially helpful at altitude when the pulmonary arterioles contract in response to hypoxemia in order to improve V/Q matching.

Athletes are no longer able to target the pulmonary vasculature for vasodilation with sildenafil citrate, because it's banned. You could take an alpha-2 antagonist or a non-specific beta agonist and get a similar effect though not as targeted.

While it might be beneficial for long term health, I really doubt these guys are thinking about it.