Can Ritalin really improve my grades?

[apache]

honestly i'm not advocating this at at all… just hypothetically… if all the people who say if you can't handle this or that actually tried any of these meds they'd agree completely. i got a 3.8 gpa in undergrad with severe adhd… after reading the literature i realize i was using almost every compensatory mechanism ppl with adhd who don't know they have it use

 

(i pace when i study, am a heavy runner, went to the gym a lot, had insanely healthy diet, study for 15-20 min then do push ups, never studied for more than 2 hrs @ a time without going for a long walk or meeting up with friends, sound proof headphones, no background visual distractions in the foreground, lots of coffee, like 5-8 cups a day, using inherent oppositionality as competitive motivation, having supportive sig other)

 

bottom line is i can handle the "rigour" of the academics, but i'm still late to things because i have trouble estimating time, i'm still impulsive at times and make decision that have bad long term consequences on a whim, yet because i'm very creative and don't adhere to traditional ways of getting from point a to b (any way will work for me) and only because i'm intrinsically one of the hardest working people and non-traditional people you will meet (as in i'm not efficient with my time, but for years i'd sleep 4 hours a day), can i make up for my complete disorganization (yes, i'm the guy who was late for his med school interviews etc. and still got in)

 

all in all i'm functional in my relationships, career, etc. but i'm stressed out of my ****ing mind, i may be the only person i know to have boarded 3 (i tell people 1 to save the embarrassment) flights with NO idea… yeah, cool, i did it, but wow was i stressed… lost a passport internationally, gotten in trouble with more agencies than i care to name because i couldn't just say, yeah, let's take the path of least resistance (at least i learned a lot about the law, consequently, lol).

 

the point is, i'm the perfect example of someone who DOES NOT take adhd meds to study, in fact, if i love what i study, i actually can hyper-focus and read for hours straight (which is why i excel in psychology, the arts and philosophy, and what i call their scientific, biological sciences equivalents: pharmacology, physiology… things with underlying premises, concepts… i hate idiosyncracies, little tid bits of information that are singularly useful… but, contrarily, love conceptual information... once you know the biochemistry of metabolism for example, it becomes very intuitive, very deductive… contrarily, i hate anatomy when taught rote, but enjoy an interactive systems approach (maybe this is why i enjoy gross brain anatomy, yet despise anything more than clinically-functionally necessary bone anatomy)

 

anyways, this has a few points to it… the first is that people with learning disabilities (if you even want to call adhd that) can make excellent doctors, i've met lots of practicing psychiatrists who were blown away by my knowledge of obscure disorders, a mind boggling number of approaches to therapy, the fact that my psychopharm knowledge (which at it's peak, is still limited by scientific limitations… but i've told a lot of practicing docs info they now use). the fact that i know study design like crazy, can bring in sociology, philosophy, religion, the law, interpretation of various tests and how they're designed and intended to be used, versus how they're clinically used, basic psychology (social scripts, self handicapping, internal versus external locus of control, open and closed situations, learned helplessness, an encyclopedia of studies that explain pathological behaviour), drugs they haven't even heard of… continue on times like a million different facts etc. into the picture, just because i've spent hundreds of hours reading the stuff (hyperfocus ) means you're never going to touch me at certain specialties, period. guess what, if i'm not on meds, i could never be a surgeon, my sense of time is to poor, my capacity for memorizing unrelated facts sucks (my short term visual memory and visual attention is in bottom 2 percentile, but my working memory is in the 90's, and my verbal fluency is insane... so basically, when i think, i keep forming continuous links and making new informational assertions to keep things fresh in my mind, and i think almost exclusively verbally, so much so that words are almost images to me…. but if i have no new links or processes i'm working at, i lose it (i.e. rote memorization)… this explains why someone may benefit from meds and be a perfectly functional doctor (in my case, doing surgery, or anything else heavily visual, as my visual attention would be brought up to a semi-normal level, i still wouldn't trust myself doing something like surgery though, i'd be a lot better in the thinking based specialties… i know my limitations)

 

the second thing i wanted to bring up is stuff like adhd is probably the most treatable disorder in psychiatry, with meds and organizational, mindfulness, compensatory training and psychotherapy (which i think everyone should get, i have no co-morbities but love having someone to talk about the weeks struggles, triumphs, relationships… often just to reflect and get a different perspective on how i can approach things… i.e. my ever rotating conflict of what i want to do for a living…. we make a mistake of thinking therapy is for the ill, it's not, it's a preventative health measure). now I've gone from top notch performer running around like a chicken without a head, to one with free time, who is balanced, doesn't stress… my performance hasn't increased, but my quality of life has… just like someone with say depression, after "good" treatment, they're just as capable as they used to be, except their quality of life is greatly improved, how is adhd any more different than depression, except for the fact that in many cases, it's far more responsive to treatment.

 

finally, i'll give you some insight into why these kids use these meds off label, while i may use these meds under the supervision of a doc i see weekly, and for totally different reasons than academics, i can tell you 100 percent they improve cognitive abilities… maybe these people are avoiding stress, or trying to improve quality of life by improving free time… let me tell you first hand, med school isn't hard, it's hard work, and it's volumous, but the implicit difficulty of material is nothing compared to some of the courses i took in undergrad… like it or not, we live in a competitive world, and 30 mg of adderall xr the night before the last final can make a B into an A. i'm not saying this is the thing to do (in fact, i warn against it, i had horrible pns effects to some meds (dex ir made me think i was going to have a heart attack, good thing i could call my doc up, talk, and switch to a longer acting therapy with dex only as adjunct therapy). the fundamental mistake you're making is homogenizing adhd, assuming that adhd = can't study, it's way more complex than i can't study… overall for me… i would say my biggest problem is disorganization, and impulsivity… studying, nah… my friends who choose to use the meds to study who don't have adhd, tell me bout the cognitive enhancement, and it sounds pretty similar to mine (in the academic domain, where i function normally without meds)

 

 

 

 

 

Personally, I feel that if one can't concentrate and do well on their exams without taking Ritalin and/or other stimulants (caffeine pills, which are common, for ex), then I'd be very concern to know how this person is going to cope during his/her medical school studies, and later on in life as an actual doctor.

 

Med school is in many ways much more intense than undergrad, and so, I stongly advise those who are serious about becoming doctors to see undergrad as a test for themselves to gauge whether or not they can truly thrive in a med school program.

 

If you are struggling too much with undergrad and specifically with the life sciences courses, then it might be that you have to reassess whether medical school is really the right choice for you. Keep in mind, though, that the first year courses (esp. orgo chemistry and biochem) always tend to be the hardest courses. So, getting a 70% on an occasional tough course is usually no big deal.

[Robin Hood]

honestly i'm not advocating this at at all… just hypothetically… if all the people who say if you can't handle this or that actually tried any of these meds they'd agree completely. i got a 3.8 gpa in undergrad with severe adhd… after reading the literature i realize i was using almost every compensatory mechanism ppl with adhd who don't know they have it use

 

(i pace when i study, am a heavy runner, went to the gym a lot, had insanely healthy diet, study for 15-20 min then do push ups, never studied for more than 2 hrs @ a time without going for a long walk or meeting up with friends, sound proof headphones, no background visual distractions in the foreground, lots of coffee, like 5-8 cups a day, using inherent oppositionality as competitive motivation, having supportive sig other)

 

bottom line is i can handle the "rigour" of the academics, but i'm still late to things because i have trouble estimating time, i'm still impulsive at times and make decision that have bad long term consequences on a whim, yet because i'm very creative and don't adhere to traditional ways of getting from point a to b (any way will work for me) and only because i'm intrinsically one of the hardest working people and non-traditional people you will meet (as in i'm not efficient with my time, but for years i'd sleep 4 hours a day), can i make up for my complete disorganization (yes, i'm the guy who was late for his med school interviews etc. and still got in)

 

all in all i'm functional in my relationships, career, etc. but i'm stressed out of my ****ing mind, i may be the only person i know to have boarded 3 (i tell people 1 to save the embarrassment) flights with NO idea… yeah, cool, i did it, but wow was i stressed… lost a passport internationally, gotten in trouble with more agencies than i care to name because i couldn't just say, yeah, let's take the path of least resistance (at least i learned a lot about the law, consequently, lol).

 

the point is, i'm the perfect example of someone who DOES NOT take adhd meds to study, in fact, if i love what i study, i actually can hyper-focus and read for hours straight (which is why i excel in psychology, the arts and philosophy, and what i call their scientific, biological sciences equivalents: pharmacology, physiology… things with underlying premises, concepts… i hate idiosyncracies, little tid bits of information that are singularly useful… but, contrarily, love conceptual information... once you know the biochemistry of metabolism for example, it becomes very intuitive, very deductive… contrarily, i hate anatomy when taught rote, but enjoy an interactive systems approach (maybe this is why i enjoy gross brain anatomy, yet despise anything more than clinically-functionally necessary bone anatomy)

 

anyways, this has a few points to it… the first is that people with learning disabilities (if you even want to call adhd that) can make excellent doctors, i've met lots of practicing psychiatrists who were blown away by my knowledge of obscure disorders, a mind boggling number of approaches to therapy, the fact that my psychopharm knowledge (which at it's peak, is still limited by scientific limitations… but i've told a lot of practicing docs info they now use). the fact that i know study design like crazy, can bring in sociology, philosophy, religion, the law, interpretation of various tests and how they're designed and intended to be used, versus how they're clinically used, basic psychology (social scripts, self handicapping, internal versus external locus of control, open and closed situations, learned helplessness, an encyclopedia of studies that explain pathological behaviour), drugs they haven't even heard of… continue on times like a million different facts etc. into the picture, just because i've spent hundreds of hours reading the stuff (hyperfocus ) means you're never going to touch me at certain specialties, period. guess what, if i'm not on meds, i could never be a surgeon, my sense of time is to poor, my capacity for memorizing unrelated facts sucks (my short term visual memory and visual attention is in bottom 2 percentile, but my working memory is in the 90's, and my verbal fluency is insane... so basically, when i think, i keep forming continuous links and making new informational assertions to keep things fresh in my mind, and i think almost exclusively verbally, so much so that words are almost images to me…. but if i have no new links or processes i'm working at, i lose it (i.e. rote memorization)… this explains why someone may benefit from meds and be a perfectly functional doctor (in my case, doing surgery, or anything else heavily visual, as my visual attention would be brought up to a semi-normal level, i still wouldn't trust myself doing something like surgery though, i'd be a lot better in the thinking based specialties… i know my limitations)

 

the second thing i wanted to bring up is stuff like adhd is probably the most treatable disorder in psychiatry, with meds and organizational, mindfulness, compensatory training and psychotherapy (which i think everyone should get, i have no co-morbities but love having someone to talk about the weeks struggles, triumphs, relationships… often just to reflect and get a different perspective on how i can approach things… i.e. my ever rotating conflict of what i want to do for a living…. we make a mistake of thinking therapy is for the ill, it's not, it's a preventative health measure). now I've gone from top notch performer running around like a chicken without a head, to one with free time, who is balanced, doesn't stress… my performance hasn't increased, but my quality of life has… just like someone with say depression, after "good" treatment, they're just as capable as they used to be, except their quality of life is greatly improved, how is adhd any more different than depression, except for the fact that in many cases, it's far more responsive to treatment.

 

finally, i'll give you some insight into why these kids use these meds off label, while i may use these meds under the supervision of a doc i see weekly, and for totally different reasons than academics, i can tell you 100 percent they improve cognitive abilities… maybe these people are avoiding stress, or trying to improve quality of life by improving free time… let me tell you first hand, med school isn't hard, it's hard work, and it's volumous, but the implicit difficulty of material is nothing compared to some of the courses i took in undergrad… like it or not, we live in a competitive world, and 30 mg of adderall xr the night before the last final can make a B into an A. i'm not saying this is the thing to do (in fact, i warn against it, i had horrible pns effects to some meds (dex ir made me think i was going to have a heart attack, good thing i could call my doc up, talk, and switch to a longer acting therapy with dex only as adjunct therapy). the fundamental mistake you're making is homogenizing adhd, assuming that adhd = can't study, it's way more complex than i can't study… overall for me… i would say my biggest problem is disorganization, and impulsivity… studying, nah… my friends who choose to use the meds to study who don't have adhd, tell me bout the cognitive enhancement, and it sounds pretty similar to mine (in the academic domain, where i function normally without meds)

 

Good for you that you're not in Quebec, you would have been rejected from the French interview, because they don't accept being late.

[apache]

le sigh… so mature

 

Good for you that you're not in Quebec, you would have been rejected from the French interview, because they don't accept being late.

[apache]

i will get on my knees and thank god the day the med profession cannot self-regulate! too many conflicts of interest.

 

 

the medical profession is doing a good enough job abiding by the rules because canada is the only country where we are still granted the privilege to self regulate.

[Robin Hood]

le sigh… so mature

 

BTW, I wasn't criticizing you. And I didn't get what you said.

[10wattbulb]

Hello muse87,

 

I clarified my position on Ritalin in a later post (right before yours) a little bit more clearly:

 

''Using Ritalin WITHOUT a prescription is quite wrong in my opinion for both moral/ethical and health reasons. I won't comment on the moral issues surrounding this dilema, but healthwise, Ritalin has a ton of side effects (including nervousness, drowsiness and insomnia) and won't actually do anything beneficial to you UNLESS you actually suffer from ADHD. I don't know about you guys, but personally, I tend to feel somehwhat nervous before going in for a final exam. The additional stimulation from a drug would only push one over the top in anxiety and nervousness.''

 

I also mentioned before that:

 

''To come back on topic, I strongly believe that everyone should AVOID using any drugs they don't need, especially if going to med school. Ritalin is one of the most over-prescribed and abused drugs. UNLESS you actually have an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using Ritalin is NOT the solution to getting better marks neither as an undergrad nor as an MD student.''

 

I think you can agree with this position, right?

 

BTW, I never said that people with ADHD can't become good doctors. But it really isn't ideal to have ADHD when you want to get into Med school. I also did not want to go into a whole philosophical argument as to why taking drugs like Ritalin w/o a prescription is wrong. But the reason is similar to why it is wrong for Olympic athletes to dope themselves to try and win a competition. Steroids aren't that bad for you healthwise (unless you really exaggerate), but they do give you a totally unfair and unmerited advantage over the others.

 

P.S. Any drug (that you normally buy at the pharmacy) should only be used when the benefits outweigh the risks and when a health professional recommends it for you.

[medigeek]

Ritalin use should be avoided for potential health problems. It's kinda funny to mention moral/ethical reasons though... very very few people in society have that level of ethical/moral sense.

[apache]

Ughhh, there's a lot I disagree with, you're homogenizing ADHD into the typical societal archetype everyone has: the depth, complexity, manifestation of heterogeneous symptomology and co-morbities is mind-boggling, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that someone with ADHD has an academic ADVANTAGE to you, if they're studying a subject they're interested in… deficit is really a misnomer, it's more regulation of attention. There are hundreds of other symptoms I could go into that have nothing to do with academics that people struggle with while they cruse to 4.0.

 

Personally, I stated my position that the drugs are potentially dangerous and should only be used under the supervision of a healthcare prof, amphetamines are weird, I've been on different formulations and one in particular gave me insane PNS side effects, so it's good to have a doctor you can call up of course, on the contrary, other formulations actually have paradoxical PNS effects (lower HR, RR… weird eh?). I'm personally a libertarian, I have my own ideas of right and wrong, but don't prescribe them as normative values… personally, I think people should be free to use cognitive enhancing agents under the supervision of a health care professional (this has been discussed in nature, tried in britain, scientific american, etc.)… to me, it's less of a moral issue than a health and legal issue. Believe me, I don't abuse my meds, and am fortunate enough to have an excellent psych who trained abroad and knows lots of internal medicine, so she's always asking about potential adverse reactions etc. but I see a lot of people on campus wired on inane doses of stimulants they're not prescribed who could drop dead of dehydration, a stroke, or aneurysm.

 

Of course it's an advantage… so is the fact that some people are born into higher ses families, some take easy course loads, some people can afford to pay people to edit their papers for them, go the mcat prep classes, stay at nice apartments and not have to work, some people get to go to prep school, private tutoring. So... that whole argument is null to me, but to each their own… I have a friend who gets stoned and drunk before she writes essays and I could never beat her, how that is an advantage I couldn't tell you, but it worked for her. Besides, I didn't want med at the beginning of university, so to me, university wasn't a competition, I tried to best myself, but that's about it, so for many people, maybe using stimulants is a way of mastering material they're passionate about… again, not that I condone that unless supervised by a health care prof. If the patient is sentient, with good insight, and cognizant of the benefit to risk ratio I think they have a right to request something, ultimately though, I do believe it's the health care professionals ultimate discretion (I've seen a lot of patients in hellish benzo withdrawal who docs irresponsibly tossed benzos at like candy, and when someone is having panic attacks and is desperate, they're not always in the best frame of mind to make long term health decisions). I also like to draw the contrast of how easily SSRI's are tossed out without a thorough investigation into underlying factors and a comprehensive interview… SSRI's have a lot of risks yet are tossed out like candy… how are SSRI's any different than stimulants, hypothetically, I know people on buproprion (not an ssri) who aren't depressed, but just find it makes them feel "better", is this an advantage… the line begins to blur, lol.

 

If you want my honest opinion, I have the straight hardcore diagnosed authentic ADHD, and I don't feel angry that other people are cheating… if they want to put their health at risk, so be it, I can only control how I respond to the world, not how others do, so I just mind my own business and do my best.

 

On an aside, I'm tired of people trashing amphetamines for safety profile, we have over 80 years of hard data on long term use, when used responsibly, supervised, and when the right formulation is found, these meds have minimal side effects (if you're worried about cardio effects, which are minimal unless you're abusing the stuff and find something right for you, ask your psych for a β1/α1 antagonist, if insomnia is a problem, clonidine, a central α2 agonist and imidazole agonist cancels out the pns/cns effects of amphetamines/methylphenidate centrally, so insomnia is instantly gone… you could always try a different med with different pharmacokinetics (biphentin instead of concerta). I'd be hesitant to take an SSRI for life, long term use personally scares me... amphetamines/methylphenidate, not so much. I'm not trying to say that everyone should do this, but this is just the common clinical approaches used by psychiatrists for people who have ADHD, just to address your comment about side effects.

 

A lot of the philosophy was just me shooting the ****, I enjoy ethics, so don't feel obligated to respond, lol, I know I kind of push it into the discussion sometimes just to offer a dissenting opinion or to make people think.

 

Hello muse87,

 

I clarified my position on Ritalin in a later post (right before yours) a little bit more clearly:

 

''Using Ritalin WITHOUT a prescription is quite wrong in my opinion for both moral/ethical and health reasons. I won't comment on the moral issues surrounding this dilema, but healthwise, Ritalin has a ton of side effects (including nervousness, drowsiness and insomnia) and won't actually do anything beneficial to you UNLESS you actually suffer from ADHD. I don't know about you guys, but personally, I tend to feel somehwhat nervous before going in for a final exam. The additional stimulation from a drug would only push one over the top in anxiety and nervousness.''

 

I also mentioned before that:

 

''To come back on topic, I strongly believe that everyone should AVOID using any drugs they don't need, especially if going to med school. Ritalin is one of the most over-prescribed and abused drugs. UNLESS you actually have an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using Ritalin is NOT the solution to getting better marks neither as an undergrad nor as an MD student.''

 

I think you can agree with this position, right?

 

BTW, I never said that people with ADHD can't become good doctors. But it really isn't ideal to have ADHD when you want to get into Med school. I also did not want to go into a whole philosophical argument as to why taking drugs like Ritalin w/o a prescription is wrong. But the reason is similar to why it is wrong for Olympic athletes to dope themselves to try and win a competition. Steroids aren't that bad for you healthwise (unless you really exaggerate), but they do give you a totally unfair and unmerited advantage over the others.

 

P.S. Any drug (that you normally buy at the pharmacy) should only be used when the benefits outweigh the risks and when a health professional recommends it for you.

[sgt.pepper]

Bio150 3 yrs ago used to be so easy. Everything was from the slides. Listen to the recordings make notes, and memorize the slides till your eyes bleed and get A+. Textbook was not mandatory and thomson would linear adjust 10%. Barret copied 80% of his past tests lol. Did it change?

[ch3wbacca1991]

Ritalin use should be avoided for potential health problems. It's kinda funny to mention moral/ethical reasons though... very very few people in society have that level of ethical/moral sense.

guess im the exception then!?!?!

[zainy1993]

Bio150 3 yrs ago used to be so easy. Everything was from the slides. Listen to the recordings make notes, and memorize the slides till your eyes bleed and get A+. Textbook was not mandatory and thomson would linear adjust 10%. Barret copied 80% of his past tests lol. Did it change?

 

Yeh, it changed it a lot. Thompson and Barrett started to put some questions on the test that weren't presented in lecture, but we were supposed to read. I would have loved past tests, but since BIO120 and BIO130 were new, we only had one set of past papers to study from.

[medigeek]

guess im the exception then!?!?!

 

Seems like it

 

After having been involved in high level athletics and knowing a coupe world class athletes personally... I can tell you for a fact that performance enhancements are avoided for 2 reasons:

 

1) Risk of being caught

2) Health reasons

 

No one cares the slightest bit about the "cheating" part. Sure they do when they're on camera, but behind the scenes? no one cares.

 

The reality? they find undetectable ways to dope, and theyre the people who always win.

[aaronjw]

Health risks of anabolic steroids are things perpetrated by politicians and media.

 

Educated your mind and form your own opinion.

 

I can tell you for a fact that performance enhancements are not avoided at high-level athletics.

[MaeFleur]

Health risks of anabolic steroids are things perpetrated by politicians and media.

 

Educated your mind and form your own opinion.

 

I can tell you for a fact that performance enhancements are not avoided at high-level athletics.

 

I read somewhere else people talking about this and I just wanted to say that there may be some sports whose athletes are training at the Olympic level and use performance enhancing drugs but from what I've seen most do not! These athletes are urine tested randomly and frequently and simply do not use performance enhancing drugs. So I can tell you for a fact that they indeed ARE avoided at high level athletics, at the very least from what I've seen.

 

Edit: I'm realizing now that you guys might not have meant the Olympic level by saying high level athletics. Whoops!

[medigeek]

I am well aware of anabolic use in higher levels of athletics.

 

1) I personally believe the risk is minimal in the IOC, NFL, NHL, etc and these organizations make it look like there doing something about drug use but aren't but use sacrificial lambs (like ben johnson). Carl Lewis shouldn't even have been in the race due to use IOC banned stimulants but it was covered up. Testing is a joke. Detection time for say testosterone ranges from 3 weeks - 3 months. There is no test for HGH (until recently?) and it seems like peptides are the craze right now since there is no test for it either.

 

2) Assuming a healthy ADULT male anabolics (lets use testosterone propionate for example) is no more dangerous than a birth control pill to a female maybe even safer assumeing proper PCT. Anabolics are much safer than most prescription drugs imo.

 

I definitely don't agree with you because a lot people do care! Maybe they convince themselves that no one cares in order to justify their means to a end?

 

Guess if I don't have do whatever it takes mentality im not cut out to be a champion in my sport either?

 

1) 6/8 people in the 88 final had some association with drug use, ben and carl being just two of them. Testing has made much more development recently, and chemicals changes are monitored in some athletes. But in many others, use of undetectable drugs has shot up. I dont believe standard AAS is used anymore in track and field during in-season.

 

2) I wouldnt say AAS is equal to birth control in terms of safety.. I personally know people who have developed some problems after a few cycles of well controlled usage, as well as PCT use (though not a good enough one).

[medigeek]

Health risks of anabolic steroids are things perpetrated by politicians and media.

 

Educated your mind and form your own opinion.

 

I can tell you for a fact that performance enhancements are not avoided at high-level athletics.

 

 

They are but there's reality to them as well. Increased LDL levels, increased liver enzyme count, poor kidney function, increased risk of cancer, etc.

I read somewhere else people talking about this and I just wanted to say that there may be some sports whose athletes are training at the Olympic level and use performance enhancing drugs but from what I've seen most do not! These athletes are urine tested randomly and frequently and simply do not use performance enhancing drugs. So I can tell you for a fact that they indeed ARE avoided at high level athletics, at the very least from what I've seen.

 

Edit: I'm realizing now that you guys might not have meant the Olympic level by saying high level athletics. Whoops!

 

Olympics just happens every 4 years... track and field at the world class level has indoor competitions from dec/jan until march and then outdoor begins in many parts of the world as early as jan and finishes as late as october.

 

Urine samples/blood work can only test for detectable drugs. There's been drugs that have developed over time to be untestable... as well as other things like insulin use, etc. These guys can also use plenty of drugs during their off-season/pre-season training to enhance their performance. Then you have things like gene doping...lol

[MaeFleur]

You don't actually think that people who train for the Olympics compete only every four years, right?

 

And yes you're totally right that there are undetectable performance enhancers I'm just saying that from my experience with Olympic level athletes, none of them are even considering it. It's just not worth it. They aren't just tested during competition, there is no "off season", they are tested all the time.

[aaronjw]

You don't actually think that people who train for the Olympics compete only every four years, right?

 

And yes you're totally right that there are undetectable performance enhancers I'm just saying that from my experience with Olympic level athletes, none of them are even considering it. It's just not worth it. They aren't just tested during competition, there is no "off season", they are tested all the time.

 

What's your experience with American, European and Asian athletes?

 

They don't play by our rules of morality.

[aaronjw]

Kiney function is generally associated with tern usage and poor hydration.

 

Liver function is generally associated with abuse of oral drugs - alll oral drugs.

 

LDL is general lack of proper nutrition and poor cardio and def inadequate amount of healthy fats. In fact, increased healthy fats and decreased sugar consumption alone can be single handedly responsible for lowering LDL.

 

Alcohol, tobacco, OTC and prescription drugs are responsible for FAR more health issues than AAS ever will and that's a fact yet politicians and mdia don't vilify those.

 

I'm neither pro or con ones personal choice but I do get sick of ignorance of society without facts to back them up.

 

 

They are but there's reality to them as well. Increased LDL levels, increased liver enzyme count, poor kidney function, increased risk of cancer, etc.

 

 

Olympics just happens every 4 years... track and field at the world class level has indoor competitions from dec/jan until march and then outdoor begins in many parts of the world as early as jan and finishes as late as october.

 

Urine samples/blood work can only test for detectable drugs. There's been drugs that have developed over time to be untestable... as well as other things like insulin use, etc. These guys can also use plenty of drugs during their off-season/pre-season training to enhance their performance. Then you have things like gene doping...lol

[MaeFleur]

What's your experience with American, European and Asian athletes?

 

They don't play by our rules of morality.

 

haha I admit I have very little experience outside of Canadian athletes and a few Europeans and Americans. I'm just posting to say that it's not fair to paint all high level athletes with such a broad strokes. The Olympics is truly as fair as it can be (I believe so anyway) and the performances shouldn't be scoffed at by saying "Oh they're all cheaters" because they're not.

[apache]

N-Acetyl Cysteine has been show to prevent any possible oxidative damage, which is found in numerous classes of psychotropic medications. Magnessium supplementation and Memantine (partial NMDA antagonists) augmentation to prevent against NMDA mediated tolerance via signally through communication via platelet derived growth factor receptors… this all goes into glutaminergic feedback loops thought to be signalled by increased intra-cellular calcium feedback mechanism (from the PDGFR) and prob some sub-dependent ip3 signalling which would depress NMDA-R firing and currents and a few other signalling pathways in glutaminergic cells, which would occur with increased firing of D2 & D4 neurons, which would deal with some of the problems of habituation… now we just need to understand the g coupled receptors of D2 and the MAP Kinase regulators and we'll be set, my guess is they'll for a targeted phosphatase and local ph modulation to make tyrosine kinase more sympathetic to L-Dopa stimulation… this could have huge application in parkinson's too, not just ADD, sadly, i have all the ideas but none of the nano or high level math & o-chem, but i know someone that does this work in the national nanotech… he's brilliant, but lacks the macro perspective… i'm killing to even volunteer with him though, he's a philanthropist & works for Harper, when he could be in industry, arghhhh… such a waste of talent with no funding… plus my idea's are useless without his nano-tech, comp sci, eng & orgo experience

 

Seems like it

 

2) Health reasons

[holiday1001]

you should use the enter key more

[apache]

i'm a post-modernist, deconstructionist, what??? punctuation, capitalization… i refuse to let my writing be restricted (really, i'm just lazy, n too immersed in thought to coherently write with proper punctuation, roflmao)

 

you should use the enter key more

[medigeek]

You don't actually think that people who train for the Olympics compete only every four years, right?

 

And yes you're totally right that there are undetectable performance enhancers I'm just saying that from my experience with Olympic level athletes, none of them are even considering it. It's just not worth it. They aren't just tested during competition, there is no "off season", they are tested all the time.

 

 

No I'm aware of that. It's just some people think guys like usain bolt only race every 4 years or something

 

How are you so aware that they dont use drugs? Maybe in their sport it's of minimal advantage? If not, then maybe they're not at the top of the world class level? If not both of those, then I'd say that you're not getting the truth.

[medigeek]

Kiney function is generally associated with tern usage and poor hydration.

 

Liver function is generally associated with abuse of oral drugs - alll oral drugs.

 

LDL is general lack of proper nutrition and poor cardio and def inadequate amount of healthy fats. In fact, increased healthy fats and decreased sugar consumption alone can be single handedly responsible for lowering LDL.

 

Alcohol, tobacco, OTC and prescription drugs are responsible for FAR more health issues than AAS ever will and that's a fact yet politicians and mdia don't vilify those.

 

I'm neither pro or con ones personal choice but I do get sick of ignorance of society without facts to back them up.

 

Long term usage? Of course. But you dont really think guys just do 1-2 cycles do you?

 

Oral usage? A good AAS cycle has an oral in it (ex. dbol).

 

AAS usage has a very hefty risk of increasing LDL levels, that's common knowledge.

 

Alcohol and tobacco ARE of bigger concern but only from a statistical perspective (more people drink alcohol and smoke than people who use steroids....). Alcohol causes more deaths than heroin, doesn't mean I'm going to think heroin is safer.