U S. Anti-Doping Agency

[G. H.]

Several postings have talked about how bad the Nutritional Supplement Industry is, that it is just a bunch of unproven claims, that "the difference is being able to back up your marketing claims and nO one can".

What do you think about the raids by the FBI, IRS and FDA at "nutritional companies" like BALCO in San Fran. There are a lot of unscrupulous companies out there. Kelli White an Olympic runner tested positive for banned substances and is in danger of loosing the medals she won in Paris.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency plays an important role in Athletics all over. Consumer Labs (a private, 3rd party comp. that tests nutritional supplements for the U S Angi-Doping Agency) has tested OVER 700 nutritional supplements and only 7 have passed the Anti-Doping Code..."do not contain any banned substances including stimulants, narcotics, any type of steriod, diuretics or masking agents". ONE COMPANY is the manufacturer of ALL 7 PRODUCTS.

THE ABILITY TO MEASURE IS THE BASIS OF SCIENCE.
Science is HOW you back up your marketing claims. That is why there is ONLY ONE company that is endorsed by the U S Olympic Committee. Only ONE company that is ALLOWED to display the Olympic Logo on their products.

All nutritional companies can tell a STORY, but being able to back it up with scientific data on the completed products, thats where the rubber meets the road.

If you are interested in finding out about this company, send me an e-mail.

Science is HOW you back up your marketing claims. That is why there is ONLY ONE company that is endorsed by the U S Olympic Committee. Only ONE company that is ALLOWED to display the Olympic Logo on their products.

Um, no offense, but what does being "endorsed" by the Olympic committee have to do with science? I guess this is bait so I will bite. What is this company that is the only ones to carry the olympic logo? Undoubtedly some supplement that you can only get through network marketing.

Show me a product and the research behind it as an example though. I will reserve judgement till I see the actual research and the methods.

Cheers, Lenny

[gardener]

"Science is how you back up your marketing claims."

Sorry, but I have to take with a grain of salt a post entered twice in these forums on the same day that the poster has just signed up.

And I'm not about to e-mail the person who posted, thus spreading my e-mail address further into unknown territory and probably increasing the flood of spam.

Besides, the statement quoted is indicative of a certain mind set. Marketing a product comes first, that's the motive. "Science" is the means of backing up the desire to sell something.

And to sell what, in this context? Probably a supplement of some ilk, that we're supposed to believe will turn us into centaurs.

But as far as recent material on anti=doping goes, here are a couple of very recent links that won't last long.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../26/CATLIN.TMP

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/sp...partner=GOOGLE

[Jean-Paul]

Gardener,
Since those links are time sensitive I will post the articles in here:

With only a used syringe to go on, it took three months of extraordinary chemical detective work to unravel the mystery behind THG, the previously unknown designer steroid that is at the center of a widening sports doping scandal linked to a Bay Area nutritional supplement laboratory.

In a story with a far-flung cast - including world-class athletes -- one of the more enterprising and anonymous characters is Dr. Don Catlin, head of UCLA's renowned Olympic Analytical Laboratory, the sole U.S. facility used to screen for chemical cheating at the Olympic level.

Catlin, who founded the lab two years before the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, revealed to The Chronicle new details about how his team of eight chemists and 40 support staff joined together in a crash effort to find TGH -- short for tetrahydrogestrinone -- and devise a practical way to find it in athlete urine samples.

Tiny sample for investigators

Working in the lab's nondescript headquarters about a mile from the UCLA campus, Catlin's team started out with nothing more than the minute contents of a spent syringe, which the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency had received from an anonymous coach. The agency suspected that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, owned and operated by Victor Conte, was the source of the THG.

Only a trace of liquid came with the syringe. The agency's staff used methanol to wash out the remnant, sending the diluted mixture by overnight courier to the lab.

"That was a huge clue," Catlin said. "The syringe had been used, but there was a little bit left in the barrel of the syringe. And it doesn't take much."

A preliminary round of general tests revealed within a week the telltale signs of a steroid -- a molecular relative of the male hormone testosterone, which has well-known muscle-building, or anabolic, effects in humans.

Right off, Catlin said, they "knew it wasn't Kool-Aid."

"We could tell from our experience with steroids that there were features that strongly suggested there were steroids in the syringe. So we knew we were on a productive track. Then we had to narrow it down."

Now hot on the trail, the team put the sample through a barrage of further tests, including mass spectrometry designed to tease out patterns of electrical charge and mass unique to each chemical entity. The machine produces a read-out on graph paper showing a peak for each chemical.

A clean sample of a single chemical would produce a single peak on the chart. This sample produced "many, many peaks," Catlin said, suggesting a complex molecule.

Like architects confronting a jumble of bricks and boards, the scientists now saw pieces of the puzzle starting to emerge, bit by chemical bit, but without much clue as to how they fit. That led to a long pencil-and-paper phase of the project. The chemists tried one structure after another, eventually producing a sketch of a molecule that held together and fit all the available evidence.

"As the days go by, and you're satisfied it's a steroid, you keep working away until you get to the point where you can draw the molecular structure on a piece of paper,'' Catlin said. "And we did that. We had pencil and paper fragmentation patterns as to how the molecule would break down in mass spectrometry, and everything fit."

Search for hard evidence

Now the detectives had what amounted to a cartoon drawing of the culprit -- hardly enough. The next step was to come up with some hard evidence.

"You think you have it," Catlin said, "but all you have really is a syringe and a piece of paper on which you have a drawing of a steroid. So now you've got to prove it's right."

This required synthesizing the target molecule from scratch and comparing its chemical fingerprint to that of the sample. Synthetic chemists in Catlin's lab led that effort, essentially duplicating the surreptitious work done by whatever lab first concocted the substance.

Two months into the project, the team finally came up with a molecule -- THG -- that worked.

"The critical day was when we compared what we made to what we found in the syringe. When it matches, then you known you've got it," Catlin said. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency would send the sample out to an independent lab to duplicate Catlin's results, just to be certain.

THG could not previously be detected in urine samples because it tends to disintegrate during standard testing procedures. The tests involve isolating about a drop of drug-containing liquid from the raw urine, then turning that liquid into a gas that can be run through a 50-foot column coiled inside an oven in which temperatures reach about 200 degrees Celsius, or 392 degrees Fahrenheit.

So Catlin's team still had another month of work to do, designing a new urine test capable of being used in routine screening of athletes. This test, which takes several days to complete, is now being used to retest hundreds of samples taken at track events this summer.

Catlin said it's unclear whether the new steroid's inherent instability was deliberately designed to evade the testers, or whether it was an accidental side effect. Nor is it clear how well THG actually works at promoting muscle growth and strength without side effects, questions that would take elaborate animal tests and, ultimately, human trials to begin answering.

One thing is clear: The THG discovery was a technical coup for Catlin.

"He's top-notch," said Peter Ambrose, a UCSF pharmacy professor who serves as a drug-testing crew chief at Olympic events. "He has great facilities and really knows what he's talking about."

Catlin's success sets the stage for widespread retesting of urine samples from previous events, a prospect the drug testers hope may deter athletes from relying on clever chemistry to escape detection. But experts said the anti-doping forces only get a temporary leg up.

Unlike the chemical cheating done by the former nation of East Germany, which it made part of state policy in international athletic competitions, doping is now done "in more cowboy fashion" through a shadowy global network of labs and is fueled by money and word of mouth, according to Dr. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

"It's little outfits all over the place, some lab, some chemist somewhere," said Goldberg, who serves as principal investigator for a drug-abuse prevention program, called ATLAS, aimed at student athletes. "It's an underground industry. There's no scrutiny, and nobody knows what they're doing."

A reasonably talented graduate-level chemistry student could design steroids like THG, whose breakdown products in the urine can't readily be detected. "The only reason it was found this time," Goldberg said, "is because a coach sent in a syringe with the stuff."

[Jean-Paul]

The second link:

Anti-Doping Religion Getting Late Converts
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

Published: October 26, 2003


In a rush, Americans appear to have gotten religion on the most significant issue facing international sports.

First, the United States Olympic Committee issues an ultimatum to its national track and field federation to put its house in order in a hurry or risk foreclosure. Then the United States Anti-Doping Agency devises a test for a previously undetectable designer steroid and announces that several prominent athletes have been caught using it. Then on Wednesday, USA Track and Field responds to the ultimatum by announcing its intention to put into effect a zero-tolerance program that could result in lifetime bans for first-time steroid offenses and fines up to $100,000 for athletes or their coaches.

Better very late than never, but the flurry of activity — most of it generated by outside pressure — should not obscure the fact that the United States still needs to stop playing catch-up and start playing the leading role in the global fight against doping.

It needs to do this for its young people. Sports might be the toy store in the megamall of modern life, but who wants children playing with dangerous toys?

It needs to do this for its international credibility, and not just within the sports community. The United States and its policies are hardly greeted with widespread enthusiasm in this complex, fractious era. Trivial though it might seem in the big picture, its generalized foot-dragging and hypocrisy toward performance-enhancing drugs have further damaged its reputation with Europeans, particularly young Europeans, fitting too neatly into the perception that the United States plays by the rules unless the rules no longer suit it.

The United States sanctimoniously wags fingers at other nations whose athletes test positive but then refuses to acknowledge when its own athletes test positive, as the U.S.O.C. did in the 1980's and 1990's and as USA Track and Field did in the case of Jerome Young, the 400-meter runner who was allowed to compete in the 2000 Olympic Games and win a relay gold medal.

"When you're a superpower, you tend to be a target," said Dick Pound, the Canadian lawyer who is president of the World Anti-Doping Agency. "But if you're a moral superpower, and you don't toe the line, the effect is much worse than it would normally be. There is such an opportunity for the U.S. to be a leader, and it's resolutely fumbling the ball."

At least it now appears to be chasing after the loose ball with some conviction, although it would have been more reassuring if the U.S.O.C. had decided to press USA Track and Field before going through a wrenching scandal of its own and before the International Olympic Committee applied all the leverage it could.

It would have been more reassuring, too, if the United States Anti-Doping Agency had uncovered the previously unknown steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, with some cutting-edge science. Instead, a sample of the substance came from a top-level coach who has yet to be identified. Think of all the in-the-know coaches who have not blown the whistle.

But at least somebody called, and it would be great if it started a trend. It would be even better if the major professional leagues, which set the tone for sports in the United States, were anywhere near as serious about testing for performance-enhancing drugs as they are about performance enhancement.

Major League Baseball's new program is a joke. It will become a genuine program with genuine sanctions only if more than 5 percent of players test positive this year (as if any less were not cause for concern). The National Basketball Association and the National Football League do have real programs but don't do nearly enough out-of-competition testing and have yet to commit to the international anti-doping code that the I.O.C. and the vast majority of its affiliated federations endorsed this summer.

Pound said: "The message by most of the professional leagues is, `Well, don't take crack cocaine, because that makes the public angry about our off-field activities, but you know we really don't care too much about what you do to get ready for your games. We'll go as far as saying we believe in drug-free sport, and yes, you're going to get tested for steroids on Sept. 22. Remember that, Sept. 22.' "

The element of surprise is the only true deterrent to postmodern cheats, and only consistent emphasis and financing can maintain that element of surprise. It's shameful that the World Anti-Doping Agency, set up in the wake of the Tour de France scandal, is missing about one-third of its budget for 2003 because national governments have not honored financial commitments.

That damages research and credibility. "We're in the long slog now," Pound said. "This is not an eight-second sound bite, and it's hard to maintain government interest in it."

Drug busts gain attention, but when the news cycle churns on and the lighthouse searchlight tracks to some other hot topic, the drug police are left on the rocks in the dark until the next headline.

There needs to be more commitment. But what is intriguing about the still developing THG scandal is that it has the potential to jump the cognitive firewall in the United States that separates Olympic sports like track and field from professional team sports in the public's perception.

This is not some distant problem, involving East German swimmers, Belgian cyclists, Italian soccer players or a Swiss-based sports organization. This is a homegrown morality play, and if the allegations prove true, it is a homegrown conspiracy, with coaches and researchers colluding to commit fraud by designing and distributing a new drug.

United States Anti-Doping Agency officials allege that THG was supplied to athletes by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a maker of nutritional supplements in Burlingame, Calif. Balco is being investigated by a federal grand jury that has issued subpoenas to dozens of prominent athletes. Balco's founder, Victor Conte, has denied developing or distributing THG, and it remains unclear if the grand jury's inquiry will focus on doping or whether it will deal exclusively with tax evasion.

But Balco's business links with top American football players and the baseball stars Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, both of whom have been subpoenaed, though not accused of taking THG, have put this drug scandal and its fallout on the agenda of the average American sports fan. The fact that a United States concern was the one to develop the test for THG should also give this more weight with Americans, sometimes skeptical of accusations from abroad.

Craig Masback, the beleaguered chief executive officer of USA Track and Field, is scrambling to use the wider implications of this scandal to turn a big negative into something constructive. He has called for an emergency drugs-in-sport meeting in Washington next month, sending invitations to the leaders of major sports in the United States.

"The situation in which we find ourselves is not a track and field problem, or even a baseball problem," Masback said. "It is an American problem with more than 4 percent of American high school seniors indicating they have used steroids in the last year."

In truth, it remains a global problem. Just wait and see how many foreign athletes other than the British sprinter Dwain Chambers have tested positive for THG by the time the last urine sample is retested. But the Americans do have a responsibility to be a big part of the solution. Why not the biggest part?

[bryanc]

Run. Away. Far, far away.

The company in question here is Pharmanex (http://www.pharmanex.com). They had an exhibit at this year's ACSM for their "biophotonic" scanner, which, they claimed, could detect whether you were nutritively healthly or not (i.e. if you had enough beta-carotenes and/or anti-oxidants); AND if not, could also sell you the vitamin packages to make you healthy as measured by their machine.

I went to their booth and asked the reps what evidence they had for the validity of their machine (you'd think that if you were sending reps to a conference _full_ of scientists, that you'd send some literature along). But like just about every other quacky booth there, they couldn't give me any.

You know, Coca-Cola also has Olympic endorsement by way of sponsorship. They get to put the rings on their products too.

Bryan (who has become jaded about the spirit of the Olympic movement, mostly, from being on committees with Dick Pound)

[russ]

They had an exhibit at this year's ACSM for their "biophotonic" scanner, which, they claimed, could detect whether you were nutritively healthly or not (i.e. if you had enough beta-carotenes and/or anti-oxidants); AND if not, could also sell you the vitamin packages to make you healthy as measured by their machine.

Were they next door to the booths promoting Live Cell Analysis and Hair Analysis for the detection of 'nutritional deficiencies'? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Jean-Paul]

Hm, still waiting on that scientific evidence. Being that this thread has gotten so much attention I emailed the original poster to see if she wanted to come back and provide some backup. I have yet to hear from her but hopefully she will jump back in here and post some.

[poopy pants]

Were they next door to the booths promoting Live Cell Analysis and Hair Analysis for the detection of 'nutritional deficiencies'?

You mean that stuff doesn't work?

[G. H.]

My Goodness....Aren't we a merry band of Cynical Skeptics. Would you please Retract your Claws! What you don't know can hurt you - or at least make you LOOK like a Centaur (the Head of a Man with the Body of an ASS)

Ok Boys.....

Sorry, but I have to take with a grain of salt a post entered twice in these forums on the same day that the poster has just signed up.

Just now signed up because until now hadn't seen such a need to enlighten and educate the uneducated.

what does being "endorsed" by the Olympic committee have to do with science?

Endorsed - per webster.."to give sanction to, Approve Authoritatively."

are advertising and saying stuff like Mag-10 will put weight on you where as the only thing proven to put any weight on any indvidual is Creatine.

Prove...Prove How? The only way to prove is through scientific research!

Coca-Cola also has Olympic endorsement by way of sponsorship.

Coca-Cola is a Sponsor of the Olympic Games, NOT ENDORSED by the US Olympic Committee. Big Difference!
Though the USOC may be somewhat controversal- like so many things- they endorsed the Pharmanex products based on the sound scientific research providing evidence of Nutritional Value, Efficacy and Safety of the Pharmanex Products.

Were they next door to the booths promoting Live Cell Analysis and Hair Analysis for the detection of 'nutritional deficiencies'?

Do you think some one like the world's formost authority an antioxidants would risk their reputations to be part of the Pharmanex Scientific Advisory Board?

[ October 28, 2003, 06:57 AM: Message edited by: Jean-Paul ]

[G. H.]

It seems the URLs didn't quite paste correctly.

Dr. Packer said, "new technique called the Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner has been developed based on an optical method known as Resonance Raman Spectroscopy. This method has been used for many years in research laboratories for carotenoid investigations in biological systems and is described in two books published about a decade ago (Packer, 1992, 1993). The scanner measures carotenoid levels in human tissues (Emakov et al., 2001), eye (Bernstein et al., 1998) and at the skin surface (Hata et al., 2000) using optical signals, called raman signals. These signals identify the unique molecular structure of carotenoids, allowing their measurement without interference by other molecular substances.

Its major advantage, compared to other antioxidant tests such as blood antioxidant levels or urinary oxidative damage byproducts, is related to measuring at the skin surface where carotenoids act to protect the body from harmful stressors in the environment like ultraviolet irradiation or ozone exposure. In contrast, serum or urine measurements, which fluctuate over a wide range of values, are less reliable and they often reflect a person's intake from recent meals rather than long-term antioxidant protection. Thus measurement of skin carotenoids by the BioPhotonic Scanner is more meaningful than most other tests used to assess antioxidant status

Pharmanex didn't create a machine to "prove their products work". The UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, Center for BioMedical Optics developed this technology and then came to Pharmanex and ASKED us to deploy the technology.

You want research? Read these Clinical Research Studies http://www.nutritionfilecabinet.com/..._clinical.pdf, http://www.gotyournumber.com/_downlo...EBabstract.pdf
http://www.nutritionfilecabinet.com/..._Carotoids.pdf

Dr. Packer was at the American College of Sports Medicine in San Francisco in May of this year and talked about the BioPhotonic Scanner when he was a speaker during the symposium on Dietary Antioxidants, Health & Exercise (Brian must not have gone to the meetings, just the expo)

Among others on this forum there is a doctor, a medical student and a physical therapist/trainer. You three, of all people, should be Open Minded to new ideas and information. As medical professionals you have a fiduciary responsibility to learn the FACTS about New Technology for the benefit of your patients. Do your due diligence.

Look Boys, - if you don't want to play in my sand box - then don't. But be Grown-Up enough to not sling mud when you don't know what you are talking about. If you Don't know all the Facts - BE WISE ENOUGH to find out. You guys better lighten up before you have a heart attack, since you don't believe supplements are any good and there is no other way to get enough antioxidants (no matter how healthy you eat0.

If you have legitamate questions and want real answers send me a "message" - I don't want or need your e-mail address.

[Jean-Paul]

Nobody is slinging mud. This is a skeptical group, yes, but that is only because there is SO MUCH thrown on us every day by supplement companies and their "valid research" that we have become naturally gun-shy. Don't worry though, you may get some heavy questioning and have to back up your claims, but we are a pretty nice group as far as internet forums go, so you won't get truly "flamed". Now go post this stuff over at T-Mag and you will find out what real flames are!

Bryan, go easy on her (you whippersnapper-STUDENT-you!).

[Kaiser]

I guess as a consumer of preventative medical services, and not a medical professional (I'm in business), I'll ask the first questions then. As an open minded consumer, I look forward to your answers. I realize this thread has taken a turn from your original post, but the questions are about the company you referenced and are relevent, IMO.

-Has Pharmanex licensed the technology for the scanner from the developers (I'm guessing that would be the University of Utah) or did they hire them to conduct the testing? In addition, is Pharmanex marketing the scanners for sale to either the medical community or the general public?

-I realize it is common practice for pharmaceutical companies to pay for their own testing. Just to get what you are saying correctly: Pharmanex hired UU to do the carotenoid level testing on subjects as a third party lab?

A final comment: Interstingly, it is well known that if you take natural carotenoid supplements, you can often see a change in the skin color in your palm due to the protective carotenoid concentrations. But the change is dependent on a number of factors, skin pigmentation being one of them.

[bryanc]

Nope, didn't go to the talk on Biophotonic scanning and anti-oxidants. Given there are about 7-10 sessions at any given time during the day, you have to be _really_ picky about what you go to, and whatever it was that I went to would have been higher on my priority list than anti-oxidants (not to say that anti-oxidants aren't important, but that I've got research interests too). I did stop by their booth though.

Hey, I'm open to reading studies. I'll play in _your_ sandbox. But let's make one thing clear here. _You_ were the one who posted the topic. _You_ were the one making claims about product efficacy and inference about the moral value of endorsement. _You_ were the one who wrote these words:

THE ABILITY TO MEASURE IS THE BASIS OF SCIENCE.
Science is HOW you back up your marketing claims. That is why there is ONLY ONE company that is endorsed by the U S Olympic Committee. Only ONE company that is ALLOWED to display the Olympic Logo on their products.
All nutritional companies can tell a STORY, but being able to back it up with scientific data on the completed products, thats where the rubber meets the road.
If you are interested in finding out about this company, send me an e-mail.

And yet, you didn't provide any evidence for us to examine, which prompted me to spend time out of my day searching for this company and returning to the forum to report my findings. Pharmanex doesn't have any references to any studies on their site. And I think my day is full enough not to have to get onto Medline to do a comprehensive search. I didn't see any rubber meeting any sort of road. If you're going to come here onto this forum making statements like the stuff above, you should at least have the courtesy to back up your statements.

By the way, if you're going to cite an abstract as "scientific evidence" (The FASEB abstract on Lifepak), don't bother. You know as well as I do that abstracts aren't peer-reviewed and are seldom of sufficient detail to determine study quality.