Effects of doping with testosterone on endurance performance

Abstract

 

Doping in sport has its origins in Ancient Greece. However, over the last century to the present, the use of such dishonest practices has increased. Among the most widely used performance enhancing drugs is the use of testosterone and its synthetics anabolics. Although these prohibited substances have been used to increase performance in test of strength and power, due to the ability to cause hypertrophy, very frequent it's detecting positive test doping by in endurance athletes by testosterone or synthetics anabolics. The aim of this study was to report the ergogenic effects of testosterone supplementation and synthetics anabolics on endurance performance, through changes on blood parameters. To this end, it has conducted a review in different databases such as Elsevier, Medline, Pubmed and Web of Science where terms such as testosterone, anemia, doping, endurance, erythropoietin, hepcidin and iron were included. Hepcidin has been proposed main regulator of body iron stores and testosterone supplementation may affect the synthesis of the hormone. The effects of testosterone on hepcidin could improve both transport capacity and oxygen diffusion. Thus, doping with testosterone could have a potential effect on ergogenic resistance patterns. However, such improvements can have negative effects on the health of the athlete like metabolic, organic, psychological disorders and immunosuppression.