Cardiologists Question the Benefit of Medications Contained in Valieva


The test, which detected three drugs in the blood of 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, raises questions about why she or any athlete would take these substances.

Valieva said she took the drugs to treat heart disease, but cardiologists said two of these drugs are not used regularly in cardiology, and the third, the banned drug trimetazidine, is used in Europe only in patients with narrowed coronary arteries. you have no choice. Even then, it is weakly effective at best.

Trimetazidine, a metabolic booster, stimulates the heart to use glucose instead of fatty acids for fuel. D., a heart and exercise researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Benjamin Levine said that the hearts of healthy people have plenty of fuel, even during intense and prolonged exercise.

Other drugs are also metabolic boosters, supplemental L-carnitine and the drug Hypoxen. Both are available over-the-counter online, but Hypoxen does not appear to be sold in health stores in the United States. No substance is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of prohibited substances.

L-carnitine is readily available as a supplement and is supposed to enable the body to use fat as fuel. A heart specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. It is unlikely to have any effect on an athlete’s performance, Steven Nissen said.

Dr. Nissen said it has been used to treat patients with damaged hearts, but there is “strong scientific evidence” that it helps them.

Dr. “It’s definitely not something we use in cardiology,” Levine added.

Eddie Coyle, MD, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that L-carnitine “had no positive effect on muscle.”

Hypoxen is sold online by Russian companies. A company sells it It claims to have been developed in Russia in 1976 and is available without a prescription. Companies make exaggerated claims for the drug, saying it can improve athletic performance and also help with serious injuries, burns, major surgery, blood loss, and asthma.

Dr. “I don’t know if it works,” Nissen said.

Medical experts said the danger to athletes goes beyond the risk of being caught using inappropriate drugs. Items can be worse than useless – they can hurt performance. And combinations of drugs that may interact contribute to unknown results. As the history of medicine shows very clearly, drugs that for every logical reason should have a beneficial effect can actually do harm.

Dr. “Don’t mess with Mother Nature,” Levine said.



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