The Case for HGH

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2733919

ESPN investigative reporter Tom Farrey surveys the medical literature, and finds that HGH may help NFL players with pituitary damage caused by concussions and other head injuries, which can be progressively debilitating, even after a player retires. Unfortunately, anti-PED hysteria will likely prevent the league from allowing HGH to be used as treatment in these cases—at least legitimately.

The league has banned HGH (on very little evidence), allegedly to protect its players from the harm it allegedly does to their health. But the game of football itself is causing debilitating, potentially life-threatening injuries to players, and we think little of it. These injuries are the entirely predictable result of the slobber-knocking hits that make the game so much fun to watch, both live, and from the six different angles in various highlight packages on SportsCenter.

So we're okay with trusting players to take the risks to their health that come with actually playing football. But we draw the line at letting them use artificial drugs to help them recover more quickly from those injuries. Because that might be dangerous.

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124700.html

 

I'm sure he's done great work - he's a fantastic journalist. Can't wait to dive into this.

But from your post, I guess my question would be... If you have pituitary damage, should you really be playing football in the NFL anyway?

But I'll read the article.....

 

Pituitary damage or alteration is a small fraction of head injuries related to football concussions.
The study cited, one in favor of HGH for treatment, could only come up with a number of 1 in 10. Feeling is, if there was a "double-blind" done, the number would be even more insignificant.
It's a case of a writer finding one study and writing a contrarian view.
With limited time, you could find several studies reporting rebuttal.
Fact is, at this time, Science doesn't fully understand the lasting effects of HGH on the body (and brain). And, probably won't for years.

 

So, naturally, we should construct another infrastructure of unenforceable drug laws to ban it.

 

Interesting, and props to Farrey for giving an unconventional view. Maybe more should be discussing rules for living with PEDs instead of naively acting like we can somehow make em go away.

 

No, I didn't say that. Especially when the only test available for detection is blood.
But, on the flip side, citing one study, whose marker is a small percentage, is just as misleading.

 

First, isn't this story very old or did ESPN get the date wrong?

Updated: January 18, 2007, 9:59 AM ET

On topic, could the thousands upon thousands of old folks who swear by this stuff be all that wrong?

 

A million people swore by fenfluramine and phentermine (fen-phen) and had results to show for it. That is, until their heart valves began developing holes.

 

If this a year old, I apologize. It was linked recently, and I just saw the January date and assumed it was current.

 

No problem. It's still an interesting topic.

 

That makes sense. Because it doesn't reference anything going on in Major League Baseball.

 

So is this the same as my doctor prescribing a course of steroids to treat an injury, but if I was an drug-tested athlete I would be banned?