Originally Posted by
MinnMan
Interesting back story, but I don't see any evidence that it applies to the peloton at present. If current cyclists are taking thyroid meds, they surely have to have TUEs. And no "oops" is going to help them if excesses are detected. "Oops" certainly didn't work for Contador. Unless there's an argument that they can be taking thyroid meds or other PEDs in ways that aren't detected by the blood tests and the biological passports, then this is a non-story.
As of the 2016 or 2017 WADA publication I read awhile back, there's no TUE needed for thyroid meds. I'm not sure they'd even be able to test for it, as long as the athlete's lab work was within normal limits.
If WADA rules haven't changed, an athlete could take a small dose of levothyroxine (or other med), maybe 25 mcg, boost their levels from low-normal or mid-normal to high-normal and basically be undetectable.
And anyone who thinks that isn't an advantage hasn't suffered from a thyroid deficiency. That stupid little gland in the throat can make or break the entire endocrine system and metabolism in ways I wasn't even aware of when I was first diagnosed around 20 years ago. My first doctors never mentioned anything. Just "Here, take this pill daily." I had to experience a serious deficiency, pore over the studies on PubMed and elsewhere, and finally find an endocrinologist and GP who were patient enough to discuss this in full. Fortunately my last GP had the same problem -- thyroid cancer -- so she knew the drill.
Even if taking a medically unnecessary thyroid medication offers 1% of an advantage, that's still significant at the elite level of competition. And as far as I can see from WADA and other rules, there's no practical way to know for certain who's doing it.
Even when Landis claimed in 2006 that he was taking a small dose of thyroid meds, we don't know for certain that he *was* taking any thyroid meds. At that time, summer 2006, by Floyd's own later accounts, he was terrified, overwhelmed and grasping at straws to explain the anomalies in his labs -- including blaming Jack Daniels. Much later, he definitely admitted to blood doping, and could only surmise that he'd received an infusion of his own blood drawn earlier when he *was* using testosterone (patch or injection, I don't remember). But by the time he gave that extensive admission around 2010 or 2011, he had no reason to withhold any info. So when he said he doesn't recall taking testosterone during the 2006 TdF, I have no reason to doubt him. And he didn't mention the thyroid thing again after around 2006-2007, so I'm assuming that was an attempt to deflect.
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Note added after first save: BTW, some folks might recall the fairly recent cycling press stories mentioning the seemingly unusual escalation in fractures among pro cyclists. This led to some speculation about whether extensive cycling alone could lead to serious bone density loss. But later studies found no definitive evidence that extensive cycling at the pro or amateur level results in sufficient loss of bone density to account for the increased reports of fractures.
But ya know what *can* lead to loss of bone density and increased risk of fractures? Hyperthyroidism and taking too much thyroid medication.
That's why my docs are extremely cautious about increasing my meds. And they would not authorize the testosterone patch, even briefly, when my levels were low a couple of years ago. They wanted to give the levothyroxine time to work, followed up by frequent lab tests, bone density studies, etc., which I just had repeated this spring.