ATHLETES at the Athens Olympics will be tested for human growth hormone. But we will not know whether anyone tested positive for at least another year. That is because the test is not yet ready, so officials will store frozen blood samples from athletes until the testing method is finalised.
The International Olympic Committee鈥檚 original plan was to have a test ready in time for the 2000 Sydney games. A well-funded international research effort called GH2000 came up with the basis for a test. But since then, progress has been slow. Christian Strasberger of the Charit茅 University Clinics in Berlin, Germany, says they are waiting until the research is watertight. 鈥淭hey will choose something that they feel is safe enough not to be sued to bankruptcy by an athlete.鈥�
The synthetic form of growth hormone was developed to treat children whose growth is stunted due to a lack of the natural version. The hormone is thought to help to build muscles and shed fat in normal adults, though this has not been proved. Growth hormone is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), but because there is still no effective test, many elite athletes are thought to use the hormone. For example, the 100-metre world-record holder Tim Montgomery testified in October last year that he had used the drug.
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At present, there are two potential tests on the table. One, developed by Strasberger, relies on the fact that the pituitary gland produces a variety of different forms of the hormone in predictable ratios. By contrast, artificial growth hormone consists largely of one form. The downside is that the test can detect the hormone only up to 36 hours after it is taken.
The second approach is more promising, because it works for up to two weeks after the hormone is taken. It looks for two chemicals in the blood that increase in response to artificial growth hormone, but not after normal exercise. IGF-1 is part of the cascade of signalling molecules that tells our muscles to bulk up, while P-III-P is a short protein sequence that is snipped off when collagen is deposited in muscles. 鈥淭hey get up to levels that you don鈥檛 see in normal people,鈥� says Peter Sonksen of St Thomas鈥� Hospital in London, who led the GH2000 team.
The team is now testing baseline levels of the two chemicals in athletes from different ethnic groups and ages. The work is scheduled to take another year to complete.
What happens then is up to WADA and the IOC. 鈥淭hey are keeping their cards close to their chest,鈥� says Sonksen. Both he and Strasberger agree though that using both tests in tandem would be the best option.