Jun 12 2009
Performance-enhancing Drugs on Hip Injuries: Still No Proof
Every few years, you can hear professional athletes having injuries. In sports hernia, there is a Lisfranc fracture and now, the torn hip labrum in Major Baseball League. Alex Rodriguez, who admitted using steroids, have missed the first two months of the season with an injury. A-Rod is not the first baseball star to suffer an injury as Boston’s Mike Lowell and Phillies star Chase Utley both underwent surgery for the same injury last year. Also, Kansas City star Alex Gordon, New York Mets slugger Carlos Delgado and Phils pitcher Brett Myers have gone down this year.
To many, the use of performance-enhancing drugs is the answer but Dr. Alexis Chiang Colvin, an Assistant Professor of Sports Medicine from Mount Sinai’s Department of Orthopaedics in New York, is not sure of this allegation. “The hip labrum isn’t a big muscle injury. In fact it’s more of a repetitive injury so I wouldn’t say it was consistent with use (of steroids),” Colvin said in a phone interview.
Colvin specializes in surgical treatment of knee, shoulder and hip disorder and has also worked with the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, NHL’s Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh. “I’m not sure it’s a new injury,” Colvin said. “I just think we do a better job of diagnosing. I’m sure a lot of players had similar problems but it wasn’t necessarily diagnosed the same way and the treatment may have differed.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Ben Wedro, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin and a consulting onsite physician at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, agrees to Colvin. “My experience with the increase in hip surgery may have to do with technology catching up to the diagnosis of labral tears and the ability to treat them,” Wedro said. “Only in this decade has hip arthroscopy become available.
“New instruments and surgical techniques have been developed to work inside the joint and repair cartilage or labrum tears and clean out arthritic changes. This has led to aggressive diagnostics of hip pain with the use of enhanced MRI images. Without the ability to fix the injuries that could be seen with MRI, there was no need to do the test.”
But to Matt Chaney, a former college football player and author of Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football, steroids can contribute to hip injuries but there is still no proof. “There is no clinical data that says performance-enhancing drugs cause these types of injuries,” Chaney, who has admitted taking steroids while a football player at Southeast Missouri State, said. “We believe steroids contribute but there’s no proof.
“I know in the late 1970s and 80s, the increasing sizes of players, especially in football, resulted in some brutal tendon injuries, especially with the Achilles and patella. On the other hand, the word is HGH helps your tendons.”
“When you abuse this stuff, you are going to have problems, Chaney said. “When you go for size, it’s real simple. A lot of guys, off the record, admit it taxes your system. It’s all about your dosage.”
In the ‘70s, athletes have really grown and no one seems to find an explanation on this. The players are not only bigger as they are also faster, stronger, and quicker. “The majority of athletes have used anabolic steroids or human growth hormone, GHB, insulin, IGF-1, you name it,” Chaney said. “Testing is not worth a damn.”
“I realized years ago that the public is insensitive to PEDs in sports and, in fact, that most fans love the performance and appearance of athletes on drugs,” Chaney said.
[...] to the brain are also being look into. This issue is also similar to the allegations that most hip injuries of professional athletes were primarily caused by performance enhancing [...]