[tt] WADA worried about placebo doping

[Hughes, James J.]

Next they'll be coming for my placebo testosterone. - J.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626285.400-placebo-b
oost-is-a-conundrum-for-sports-regulators.html

Placebo boost is a conundrum for sports regulators

    * 06 November 2007

Here's a new problem for authorities trying to keep
performance-enhancing drugs out of sport: even being given a placebo on
the day of a competition can benefit athletes.

Fabrizio Benedetti and his colleagues at the University of Turin, Italy,
timed how long young men could operate an exercise device while blood
flow in their arm was restricted, making the exercise painful. During
two practice sessions a week apart, some were given morphine injections,
which enabled them to exercise for longer. A week later the morphine
group received a fake injection, but still managed to exercise for
longer, seemingly oblivious to the pain (The Journal of Neuroscience,
vol 27, p 11934).

Doctors have long known that placebos can have a significant effect in
medicine, but till now no one had considered their implications for
sport. "Should we consider morphine conditioning in the training phase
ethical and legal?" asks Benedetti. According to rules issued by the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in Montreal, Canada, athletes are
allowed to take opiate painkillers such as morphine during training, but
not on the day of a competition. Alain Garnier, medical director of
WADA, says they are aware of the problem. "It is not an easy question,"
he notes.