Performance Enhancement, Doping and Sport

Pucsok, Jozsef

From the ancient Greek Olympics to modern times, man has been determined to enhance his sporting performance. The driving force behind a sportsman's preparation is the achievement of the best possible performance and with success comes glory.

Anabolic hormones belong to the group of banned performance enhancers. Their long-term use leads to the development of liver disease and damages the heart vessels. The blocking of testosterone secretion causes men's sexual interest to diminish and atrophy of the testicles begins, eventually resulting in a complete inability to procreate.

Genetics will play a leading role in future sports research, knowledge of genome-level differences will provide us with state-of-the-art data related to sporting performance. This will provide an opportunity to complement the results of traditional load tests with a genotype test. Genomic research in sport will reveal how performance can be developed in a range of diseases that result in muscle atrophy through the introduction of a gene that would modify muscle metabolism.

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