Stem cell 'therapy'

[Mrs John Murphy]

Colon and stem cells

More Colon and stem cells

I wonder at what point we might see it (or maybe we are already seeing it) within the peloton.

People in their late 30's coming back as good as new... can't think who that sounds like...

 

[Merckx index]

Purita said that he has treated at least two dozen professional athletes over the years, mostly baseball and football players, and that he has never given any of them H.G.H.
“I just won’t give it to these guys,” Purita said. “I don’t need the stigma and that kind of reputation.”

Can he really be this naïve? This is like admitting giving a new designer drug, but since it’s not explicitly identified as banned, it’s OK. Of course this treatment is a performance enhancing program. If it does everything a program including HGH does, then obviously it should be classified as the same kind of advantage HGH is.

We can (and have before, at the Clinic) debate about where and how to draw the line between treatments that make an athlete better than he ever was and treatments that only make him as good as he once was, but the fact that HGH wasn’t used here is really irrelevant.

“This is not just about what we did,” he said. “We gave him the means, but he has the focus and desire, the killer instinct. He worked his tail off to get back in the game. That is something stem cells cannot fix.”

“I worked harder than anyone else. I was the only one who did reconnaissance on all the Tour stages. I also used a high cadence.”

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

That procedure raises some interesting possibilities. Plenty of athletes finish their careers with wreaked joints. Competing with injuries that are masked with cortisone injections, instead of waiting till the joint is fully healed, is a contributing factor.* It would be nice to think that there are new procedures which could help those people. With all this medical experimentation on athletes, there is a reasonable chance the docs will trip over a good idea eventually...

Perhaps we all just need to adjust to the idea that athlete is a euphemism for guinea pig. For example, all sports doping is off label drug use. It's not evidenced based to accepted medical standards; it's experimental medicine. Maybe it's time to honest about what is going on and impose ethical standards for medical experiments on human subjects.

Experimenting on the fittest, healthiest people seems sickeningly perverse to me, but athletes appear pretty keen to participate. Perhaps it's time to celebrate their willingness to offer themselves up for the advancement of medicine. Maybe this procedure will be of benefit to people with dodgy joints and unfinished business with feeling young and invincible; I could use a rejuvenated knee myself.

Hope I haven't offended with this post. I'm really looking for a compelling argument for why this wont happen. (Although all I'm likely to get is a reminder of the futility of thinking out loud on the internet.)

*Can anyone comment on the current availability of TUEs for cortisone use on injuries?

 

[forty four]

Colon and stem cells

More Colon and stem cells

I wonder at what point we might see it (or maybe we are already seeing it) within the peloton.

People in their late 30's coming back as good as new... can't think who that sounds like...

bored much? bitter why are you on these forums? let me simply speak the truth top athletes will always cheat oh and p.s. its entertainment it serves utterly no function beyond that simple.
yet people want athletes to do things they cannot do and then rip them apart for cheating when caught while at the same time they want to watch but are not down for it themselves meaning cant do it very sad and pathetic. then again the internet allows this kind of none eye contact coward crap.... its just sad i feel bad to be a cyclist when i read some of these threads..


get over sporting really move on its not for you.

 

[Granville57]

Perhaps we all just need to adjust to the idea that athlete is a euphemism for guinea pig. For example, all sports doping is off label drug use. It's not evidenced based to accepted medical standards; it's experimental medicine. Maybe it's time to honest about what is going on and impose ethical standards for medical experiments on human subjects.

Hope I haven't offended with this post. I'm really looking for a compelling argument for why this wont happen. (Although all I'm likely to get is a reminder of the futility of thinking out loud on the internet.)

If you missed this thread from a couple of months ago, you might find the linked article quite interesting, and relevant to your question.

Surgical Doping
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/03/mma-plastic-surgery/all/1

Scary stuff when all the implications are considered.

 

[Granville57]

Colon and stem cells

Ha! I see they've changed the headline from earlier.

What was previously, MLB looking into operation on Yanks' Colon
is now, Colon’s Dominican surgery defended by doctor

I originally read the first one as to imply they were looking into someones "colon." Talk about invasive surgery for an athletic advantage!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Agree completely with Merckx Index. It's an absurd argument, aimed at catching the masses off guard, assuming they are naive.

“We didn’t use human growth hormone with Bartolo,” Liriano said. “It was a totally clean process in which we did not use anything out of place or regulated by the major leagues.”

Oh sure. So because you say so, it's a "clean process" and because it's not - in your interpretation on the MLB list - "regulated by the major leagues", and it's not HGH, it's therefore perfectly okay. Right.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Ha! I see they've changed the headline from earlier.

What was previously, MLB looking into operation on Yanks' Colon
is now, Colon’s Dominican surgery defended by doctor

I originally read the first one as to imply they were looking into someones "colon." Talk about invasive surgery for an athletic advantage!

It's like the old joke. He was wondering when his career would hit bottom and now it has.

Alpe - the think that struck me was how 'in denial' baseball still is - I still remember the debates of a few years back where people would deny that steroids/EPO etc would give you any advantage - 'It's about hand-eye co-ordination'. Likewise, with golfers, footballers etc as well - EPO won't help etc etc

I just wonder if this 'therapy' is as pioneering as is made out or if others have used it but kept quiet about it.

I imagine that it is pretty undetectable unless you go and blab about it to the press.

 

[Merckx index]

Here’s a columnist who has a new reason for thinking MLB is steroid-free. If his theory were correct, pro cycling should have been dope free quite a while ago:

No, there’s something more here: Massive, massive public pressure. If a player is caught taking steroids in baseball, he’s disgraced. If he’s a great player, he will be humiliated in the Hall of Fame balloting. If he’s a good player, he will get savaged in the media and by fans. If he’s a mediocre player, he will find it hard to get work — teams don’t need that sort of publicity anymore. We’ve seen this happen. We know it’s real. And this sort of public pressure is not there in football, for many logical and illogical reasons.

In baseball, the public pressure is so intense that, I think, it has transcended reason and fairness and perspective. Now, if a player has a hot month-long stretch, the whispers begin. If a player hits more home runs than his history suggests, the whispers turn to murmurs. With this sort of heat surrounding the game, it seems to me that to take the chance of getting caught using steroids in baseball these days you’d have to be: (1) desperate; (2) arrogant beyond reason; (3) detached from reality.*

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/05/11/why-i-think-steroids-are-out-of-baseball/?eref=sihp

And another opinion suggests that Tiger Woods’ prolonged slump is because he’s clean now:

Woods was treated by Galea here in Orlando in 2009 despite the fact that Galea was reportedly not licensed to practice medicine in the United States. Woods says he used Galea not for HGH but for a technique known as "blood spinning" to help expedite Woods' recovery from knee surgery. Why Woods would choose a well-known HGH doctor from Canada to do this "blood-spinning" when many licensed American doctors also perform the technique has raised a mountain of suspicion.

Even though Woods has denied ever taking PEDs, many professional golfers are skeptical. Sports Illustrated polled 71 PGA Tour players last year and nearly a quarter of them said they believed Woods was dirty.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/golf/os-bianchi-tiger-woods-tpc-0513-20110512,0,6252273.column

 

[Granville57]

I still remember the debates of a few years back where people would deny that steroids/EPO etc would give you any advantage - 'It's about hand-eye co-ordination'. Likewise, with golfers, footballers etc as well - EPO won't help etc etc

That was one of things I found so interesting about the revelation that HGH can improve vision.

Superior hand/eye coordination and eyesight are definitely necessary to be a great hitter (probably applies to golf too). So it's like the ultimate bonus effect, and one not to be underestimated. Win, win!

 

[Granville57]

With this sort of heat surrounding the game, it seems to me that to take the chance of getting caught using steroids in baseball these days you’d have to be: (1) desperate; (2) arrogant beyond reason; (3) detached from reality.

That's an entertaining perspective he has.

(1) Desperate (for multi-million dollar contract)
(2) Arrogant beyond reason (pro athlete)
(3) Detached from reality (See above. The life and world of an MLB player is unlike anything most people will ever experience)

I'm not sure if he's arguing for or against his own theory.