gms | German Medical Science

Aim: The misuse of potentially performance enhancing agents in recreational and elite sport represents a central and multifaceted challenge that concerns health professionals and organizations as well as sports authorities. Not only recently detected and confessed drug (ab)use practices have outlined the limitations of drug testing programs and, at the same time, the willingness of individuals to jeopardize their health by using therapeutics without medical indication and, even worse, non-approved substances with unknown acute and long-term (adverse) effects.

Method: By means of continuous and comprehensive literature and patent screening regarding new drug developments as well as analysis and evaluation of illicitly sold and confiscated materials (mostly through customs controls), trends in drug (mis)use are recognized to allow preventive and proactive measures in sports drug testing programs based on analytical and educational strategies.

Results: Various different emerging drugs and established therapeutics have been found to be illicitly distributed, indicating a receptive clientele unhesitating in buying and using these substances for non-theraupeutic purposes. Especially anabolic agents and non-approved experimental compounds, several of which were discontinued from clinical development due to severe adverse health effects, but also failed productions of peptidic substances have been observed and characterized.