Viagra under suspicion for sports doping
by CarolineNew suspect in sports doping is, no joke, Viagra — college athletes are testing Viagra for any potential, um, performance enhancement. The effects are most noticeable in cases of high altitude or air pollution.
No wonder Bob Dole won the Tour de France all those times. Dole, you fiend!
The artful combination of steroids and Viagra is up for chicken-or-egg debate:
one responseThe former major league baseball player Rafael Palmeiro once served as a pitchman for Viagra and tested positive in 2005 for the steroid stanozolol, although the connection, if any, between the drugs in his case is not known. Some athletes are believed to take Viagra in an attempt to aid the delivery of steroids to the muscles and hasten recovery from workouts. Others take Viagra to counter the effects of impotence brought on by steroid use, said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s committee on prohibited substances.
Hey again,
This is kind of legit–i heard in India that Viagra was originally designed for work at high altitude, where arterial dilation would noticeably increase blood flow and thus oxygen supply. Wikipedia tells me it was originally designed for hypertension and angina…whatever. But anyway, our friends at Pfizer decided (correctly) that it would be more profitable to market the drug to erection-challenged middle aged men, as opposed to mountaineers. Hence Viagra.