Detecting growth hormone abuse in athletes

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Biochemistry
• Anti-doping

Background:

• Human growth hormone (GH) is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) due to its anabolic and lipolytic effects.
• Detecting GH abuse in athletes is difficult, necessitating reliable testing methods.
• Current detection strategies involve analyzing GH isoforms or markers of GH action.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of two distinct approaches for detecting human growth hormone (GH) abuse in athletes.
• To assess the utility of measuring pituitary GH isoforms versus markers of GH action for anti-doping purposes.

Main Methods:

• Development of immunoassays to distinguish between pituitary GH isoforms and recombinant human GH (22-kDa isoform).
• Implementation of a GH detection test using markers of GH action: insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and type III pro-collagen (P-III-P).
• Statistical analysis, including discriminant function analysis, applied to biomarker data from double-blind placebo-controlled trials.

Main Results:

• The WADA-approved test based on GH isoforms has not yet resulted in any positive cases.
• The GH-2000 test, utilizing IGF-I and P-III-P, demonstrated dose-dependent increases in response to GH administration.
• Discriminant function analysis effectively differentiated GH administration from placebo in controlled trials.
• The IGF-I and P-III-P test proved applicable across diverse ethnicities and was unaffected by athletic injuries.

Conclusions:

• While GH isoform analysis is used, its effectiveness in detecting abuse remains to be demonstrated by positive cases.
• Measuring biomarkers of GH action, specifically IGF-I and P-III-P, offers a robust and reliable method for detecting GH doping in sports.
• The GH-2000 approach is a promising tool for anti-doping efforts, showing consistency across populations and conditions.