ß2-Agonists and Doping

• Autor(a) principal: Vilaça, Ana Rita Neves
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/8758
• topic: Agonistasß2; Atletas; Desempenho; Desporto; Doping; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Médicas::Ciências da Saúde::Medicina

Background: Doping in sport is a widespread problem not just among elite athletes, but mainly in recreational sports. ß2-agonists may be used for doping in sport because of their bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory actions, but more importantly for their potential anabolic action. The question of whether their use has increased due to asthma, EIA or EIC, or due to a misuse by non-asthmatic athletes because of potential ergogenic effects, remains open. The ‘‘Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) 2019”, which lists the drugs that are considered illegal in sports, states that all selective and non-selective ß2-agonists, including all optical isomers, are prohibited. However, there are some exceptions. This prohibition is based on the fact that these drugs have the potential to improve physical performance, which leads to an unfair competitive advantage when taken by healthy athletes. Objectives: The aim of this dissertation was to conduct a systematic review to evaluate if ß2-agonists do indeed increase athletes’ performance, based on published studies between 2007 and 2018. Methods: A systematic search strategy was conducted in Pubmed and Science Direct using selected keywords (“adrenergic agonists” and “athletic performance”) between 2007 and 2018. A manual search of the reference lists of relevant articles was also undertaken in this review. Results: When comparing the results for the same ß2-agonists on an athlete and on a non-athlete person we can verify that in both cases, there are statistically significant effects, but they are more prominent on non-athlete individuals. When comparing the inhaled ß2-agonists with the systemic ß2-agonists, we found out that there are statistically significant effects in both administration modes, but these effects vary according with the administrated ß2-agonist. We found out, as well, a statistically significant effect when an inhaled combination of salbutamol with salmeterol and formoterol was studied. Regarding the duration of the administration, we verified no influence on a longer administration since there are more statistically significant effects on single administrations. When these data were analysed based on the doses permitted and forbidden by WADA, we could verify that there were not statistically significant effects regarding ß2-agonists on the permitted doses by WADA, and that there were statistically significant effects when ß2-agonists were used on the doses nowadays. Conclusion: There were not found statistically significant effects regarding ß2-agonists on the permitted doses by WADA, which in contrast was not verified on the studies that include ß2-agonists nowadays forbidden by the “Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) 2019”. Being so, we could conclude that this list should be continuously updated as it has been done lately.