The outfielder of St. Louis Cardinals, Rick Ankiel, has been accused of joining the league of athletes linked with a Florida-based investigation into steroids.

The Daily News reported that Ankiel’s HGH prescriptions, including Saizen and Genotropin, were signed by physician William Gogan from Florida and offered through a Palm Beach Gardens clinic called The Health and Rejuvenation Center, or THARC.

From Sports.espn.go.com:

The New York Daily News reported Friday that Ankiel received a 12-month supply of human growth hormone in 2004 from a Florida pharmacy that was part of a national illegal prescription drug-distribution operation, citing records its reporters saw. That Orlando outfit, Signature Pharmacy, has been implicated in a steroids investigation run by Albany County (N.Y.) District Attorney P. David Soares, which has resulted in 22 indictments and several Florida clinic raids.

Hours after the report was made public, Sports Illustrated reported on its Web site that steroids were shipped to the address of Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Troy Glaus in 2003 and 2004.

Major League Baseball asked Friday to meet with Ankiel and Glaus.

Baseball’s executive vice president of labor relations, Rob Manfred, remarked that both sides of the allegations will be heard and did not go into the details as of now.

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A Harvard Research group has made an announcement about the synthesis of a family of hormones that could be of as much medical importance as the steroid drugs are today. The steroids, which are another group of hormones, are the active ingredients in drugs such as birth control pills.

The group, directed by Elias J. Corey, professor of Chemistry and chairman of the Chemistry department, was able to synthesize five members of a class of fifteen hormones called as prostaglandins.

From Thecrimson.com:

Major Effects

Earlier researchers have intensively studied the prostaglandins because of indications that even as little as a billionth of an ounce of the hormones could have major effects on many different body processes.

Some have been found to speed up or to slow heart rate, to raise or lower blood pressure, to control deposits of fat inside blood vessels, or to change nervous activity in the brain. And present studies are testing their capability in birth control and the ability to withstand stress.

Icelandic Sheep

But all of these studies have been limited by the difficulty of obtaining working amounts of the hormones in pure form. The largest of the present meager sources is in extracts from the tests of Icelandic sheep.

Since all the prostaglandins have a closely similar chemical structure–based on a backbone of a ring of 5 carbon atoms to which 15 others are attached–synthesis of all members of the family should be a relatively easy matter. This will make possible their production in large enough quantities for research into their medical uses.

Detailed report of the research appeared in an issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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A new study has demonstrated that people who are overweight or obese may have better results with the prescription pill sold as Singulair than with a type of inhaled steroid. It was also suggested that leaner people may find it better with an inhaled steroid, called beclomethasone and sold as beclovent, vanceril, and other brand names.

There is no evidence suggesting that obesity influences responses of people to specific asthma medications, according to lead author Marc Peters-Golden, M.D., professor of internal medicine and director of the Fellowship Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.

From News-medical.net:

Researchers looked at data from four previous multi-center, randomized clinical trials from 3,073 patients with moderate asthma. The data included the patients’ responses to Singulair/montelukast, a beclomethasone inhaled steroid and a placebo, and the participants’ body mass index numbers, which placed them in the categories of normal, overweight and obese.

In general, the severity of people’s asthma was found to be greater among those in the overweight and obese groups, which supports findings from other studies.

In addition, the inhaled steroid was found to be better than Singulair at increasing the number of asthma control days (ACD) among people in the normal weight category. An ACD is defined as a day with no more than two puffs of an inhaler, no night-time awakenings and no asthma attacks.

The findings appear in an issue of the European Respiratory Journal.

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A steroid hormone released during the metabolism of progesterone (the female sex hormone), Progesterone metabolite allopregnanolone, has the potential to minimize response of the brain to stress.

The finding was disclosed by scientists at Emory University School of Medicine, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and Atlanta’s Center for Behavioral Neuroscience.

From News-medical.net:

In the study, Emory researchers Donna Toufexis, PhD, Michael Davis, PhD and Carrie Davis, BS, and Alexis Hammond, BS, of Spelman College, compared how female rats with different levels of the sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, reacted to loud noises after injections of CRF into the brain’s lateral ventricles. CRF injections usually increase the “acoustic startle response” in this test used to gauge stress and anxiety, a phenomenon called CRF-enhanced startle.

In the first experiment, the scientists compared acoustic startle responses after CRF injection in an estrogen-only group, an estrogen-plus-progesterone group and a control group that did not receive any sex hormones. All the rats lacked ovaries and the ability to produce sex hormones naturally. Acoustic startle response was unaffected in the estrogen-only group and the control group. In the estrogen-plus-progesterone group, however, CRF-enhanced startle was significantly lower than in the other groups.

The scientists found evidence suggesting that brain’s response to corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a peptide hormone that plays an important role in the stress response in animals, gets minimized by progesterone metabolite allopregnanolone.

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A federal grand injury has indicated ex-US baseball star Roger Clemens as he allegedly lied on the use of performance enhancing drugs before the Congress.

If he is convicted of all charges, Clemens could face up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5m (£960,000) fine.

From BBC.co.uk:

Mr Clemens said under oath in 2008 that Brian McNamee, his former trainer, had lied before the committee about having given the former baseball star performance-enhancing drugs.

“I couldn’t tell you the first thing about it [human growth hormone],” Mr Clemens testified in 2008. “I never used steroids. Never performance-enhancing steroids.”

But Mr McNamee said he had injected Mr Clemens more than a dozen times in three years.

Earl Ward, one of Mr McNamee’s attorneys, called the indictment “vindication”.

In a statement on the micro-blogging website Twitter, Mr Clemens recently wrote: “I never took HGH [human growth hormone] or steroids. And I did not lie to Congress.”

The indictment alleged that Clemens obstructed a congressional enquiry while denying making use of substances while under oath in the year 2008.

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Brian McNamee, the former trainer of Roger Clemens, may have proved to be the star witness in the perjury case but Andy Pettitte, the Yankees hero, is all set to lead the supporting cast.

Pettitte is expected to step off the mound and onto the witness stand for testifying against his pitching mentor.

From NYdailynews.com:

Pettitte has already both bolstered McNamee’s credibility and directly contradicted some of the allegedly misleading statements by Clemens that are listed in the six-count indictment issued Thursday against the Rocket. In 2008, Pettitte testified that he used human growth hormone provided by McNamee to expedite his recovery from a 2004 elbow injury, and that he discussed HGH with Clemens in 1999 and 2005.

“Mac told the truth about me,” Pettitte said upon arriving at spring training in 2008, having seemingly survived the congressional probe into baseball’s doping subculture.

Clemens is expected to plead not guilty and this will mean that Pettitte will be all set again to become a key witness in the perjury case against Clemens.

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The former Wimbledon champion and tennis great, John McEnroe, has unwittingly admitted that he used steroids for a period of six years.

This steroid admission followed a similar admission by Greg Rusedski that he tested positive for the banned steroid, nandrolone.

From News.bbc.co.uk:

“I was being given a form of legal steroid they gave to horses until they decided it was too strong even for them,” said McEnroe.

“I’m not sure some of the strong, anti-inflammatory drugs are that far removed from illegal ones.”

McEnroe added: “People have to become more aware of what they are putting into their bodies.

People are generally administered drugs too readily, McEnroe said.

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A leading medical authority has criticized usage of anti-aging hormones in response to a recently released report “The use of hormones for “anti-aging”: a review of efficacy and safety,” by the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Council.

The example demonstrated by the AMA was applauded by Dr. Thomas T. Perls, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. AMA recently made an assessment of benefits and risks associated with growth hormone, testosterone, estrogen, and DHEA for anti-aging.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“The AMA’s review of the risks and benefits of these hormones in the setting of anti-aging and athletic enhancement is very important given its inclusion of the consensus and position statements of the key professional medical societies as well as the federal agencies that guard public health.” states Dr. Perls in the editorial.

The editorial summarizes the AMA’s assessment for each of the purported anti-aging hormones and essentially the bottom line of his argument is that in terms of anti-aging, the risks of these hormones out-weigh the little or no benefit. Dr. Perls denounces the marketing of these hormones, particularly growth hormone and anabolic steroids (anabolic steroids are variations of testosterone), for anti-aging. He also provides guidelines for spotting “red flags of quackery” and basic advice that physicians can lend to their patients in their pursuit of healthy aging.

The efforts of AMA were appreciated by Dr. Perls in an editorial appearing in the Future Medicine journal Aging Health.

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