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The news broke yesterday that Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez was being suspended for 50 games for violating Major League Baseball's performance-enhancing drug policy. Ramirez, 36, was suspended after baseball officials discovered he had been prescribed human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), according to the New York Times. HCG is a hormone used as a fertility drug in women—so what would a male athlete stand to gain by using it?

In a statement released by the players' union, Ramirez provided few details, saying only that the suspension, which he is not appealing, stemmed from "a medication, not a steroid" that his doctor prescribed "for a personal health issue."

We checked in with Andrew Kicman, head of R&D at the King's College London Drug Control Center and lead author of the 1991 study "Human chorionic gonadotrophin and sport," published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

In addition to helping women conceive, Kicman says, HCG can be used to artificially stimulate testosterone production in men, which in turn boosts muscle strength and overall athletic performance, "but this will only result in a two- to three-fold increase [in testosterone] in the serum for a few days following injection." That may sound like a lot, but doping regimens often increase testosterone levels by double that amount.

For pure testosterone-boosting purposes, Kicman adds, athletes have superior cheats available. "I don't think any well-informed individual would use HCG for this purpose," he says, "especially with the availability of short-acting preparations of testosterone," such as gels that can be applied to the skin. (Indeed, Ramirez was also found to have artificial testosterone in his body, according to ESPN's sources, but was apparently suspended for HCG on the strength of the documentary evidence for his using it.)

The hormone does, however, help male athletes right their chemical balance after the use of other performance enhancers. "Basically, HCG may be used in an attempt to prevent testicular atrophy (shrinkage) that otherwise may occur when using anabolic steroids for prolonged periods," Kicman says. Anabolic steroids are synthetic substances derived from male sex hormones that promote improved endurance and boost muscle mass and strength. "HCG may also be used," he says, "following cessation of prolonged anabolic steroid use, to try to hasten a return to normal testicular function," when the athlete would have very low levels of circulating male hormones.

Photo of Ramirez courtesy of shgmom56 on Flickr

9 Comments

1. 1. Don8RN 03:36 PM 5/8/09

   I am a nurse in a fertility clinic. We occasionally see male patients with nonobstructive azoospermia take low doses of HCG 3 times a week for about 3 months to help with sperm count prior to an IVF cycle. Our clinic had a pregnancy for a couple earlier this year who used this treatment.

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2. 2. albertsonrich 07:05 PM 5/8/09

   I find this somewhat bogus. The nutritional supplement store offers dozens of formulations that claim to improve strength and endurance. That may improve the strength workouts but Ramirez is the third or fourth greatest hitter for average in baseball history because of his timing, eyesight, the shape of his swing and his knowledge of what major league pitchers are going to do next. There is no drug to improve that. What if he wore glasses to hit? Same result?

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3. 3. JHSibal 07:34 PM 5/8/09

   "Oh Brave New World that has such (men) in it"
   It really is an anthropological smorgasbord to read these articles about "illicit" substance and sport. One is reminded of woman being forbidden from eating bananas in some Polynesian cultures, or the grab bag of messages in US culture about masculinity, success and being an athlete. You've got to win at all costs, because only winners are rewarded, you've got to be cool and yet, that which allows you to win and that which makes you cool, is taboo.
   Athletes, since the earliest Olympics, have used everything they could get their hands on to win. They are athletes, that is what they do. Once again, they are athletes, they want to win. That is the personality type which any sport selects for. The Hellenes used opium, opium with wines, opium with strange pharmacological mixes, special diets of horse meat and game and as said, everything within the grasp of their culture. In ancient Egypt, although I can't think of the data for a special diet & drugs for athletes, I have no doubt that the Bronze Age wrestlers depicted at Beni Hassan ca. 1800 BC were routinely taking opium after a trying match. (Data on the ruling classes indicates that they were high a great deal of the time. Naughty primates.) Although once used as an aid to build pyramids and constructs the Wonders of the Ancient World, opiates are now out of official favor. (Except for some American client warlords in various parts of the globe.) And so we are let with several other categories of substances we very much need to understand.
   Now somehow, in this modern age of puerile sophistry concerning what an adult can and can not place into his body, journalism continually finds something sensational about the urge to win. Now it may be that this fellow was in training to father a child, or had someone condition which some doctor, some place, and in some culture, thought or was persuaded to think would benefit from HCG, but I think it is irrelevant. Apparently, the sport authority doesn't like him using this and will penalize him.
   I can't support this line of reasoning since to me, at least, it isn't reasoning at all. Some say that only a genetic advantage is fair, but once again, the issue is sidestepped. To this argument, I would point out that gene therapies are apparently in full swing in China. And I have little doubt that most pro-athletes are soon going to make extended trips to posh clinics and coming back noticeably larger, faster, and stronger and with some nice silk bathrobes for their girlfriends (or boyfriends).

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4. 4. JHSibal 07:36 PM 5/8/09

   "Oh Brave New World that has such (men) in it"
   It really is an anthropological smorgasbord to read these articles about "illicit" substance and sport. One is reminded of woman being forbidden from eating bananas in some Polynesian cultures, or the grab bag of messages in US culture about masculinity, success and being an athlete. You've got to win at all costs, because only winners are rewarded, you've got to be cool and yet, that which allows you to win and that which makes you cool, is taboo.
   Athletes, since the earliest Olympics, have used everything they could get their hands on to win. They are athletes, that is what they do. Once again, they are athletes, they want to win. That is the personality type which any sport selects for. The Hellenes used opium, opium with wines, opium with strange pharmacological mixes, special diets of horse meat and game and as said, everything within the grasp of their culture. In ancient Egypt, although I can't think of the data for a special diet & drugs for athletes, I have no doubt that the Bronze Age wrestlers depicted at Beni Hassan ca. 1800 BC were routinely taking opium after a trying match. (Data on the ruling classes indicates that they were high a great deal of the time. Naughty primates.) Although once used as an aid to build pyramids and constructs the Wonders of the Ancient World, opiates are now out of official favor. (Except for some American client warlords in various parts of the globe.) And so we are let with several other categories of substances we very much need to understand.
   Now somehow, in this modern age of puerile sophistry concerning what an adult can and can not place into his body, journalism continually finds something sensational about the urge to win. Now it may be that this fellow was in training to father a child, or had someone condition which some doctor, some place, and in some culture, thought or was persuaded to think would benefit from HCG, but I think it is irrelevant. Apparently, the sport authority doesn't like him using this and will penalize him.
   I can't support this line of reasoning since to me, at least, it isn't reasoning at all. Some say that only a genetic advantage is fair, but once again, the issue is sidestepped. To this argument, I would point out that gene therapies are apparently in full swing in China. And I have little doubt that most pro-athletes are soon going to make extended trips to posh clinics and coming back noticeably larger, faster, and stronger and with some nice silk bathrobes for their girlfriends (or boyfriends).

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5. 5. JHSibal 07:50 PM 5/8/09

   Anabolics, HCG, etc,. are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg, Pandora's Box is open. And for those who watch TV and see massive men bang into each at great force and violence each Sunday at the game, only to bang into each other again a mere seven days later, and then try to dissuade their son or daughter from taking something, the moral ground is lost.
   We as a culture should make up our minds what are the parameters for pro sports and then treat people as adults. And we as a culture should make up our mind what percentage of national resources we wish to spend playing cops and robbers trying to prevent people from putting things into their bodies.
   I for one, so old fashioned and truly Conservative that I sound like a radical, would spend the money in good, solid education, although a classroom is not as sexy as guns and shoot out. But our kids need to know what is the fair, unvarnished evidence of the use of these substances. And also understand that sport is not just about winning, it is about being a sport.

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6. 6. Kelley 12:36 PM 5/9/09

   I may be ignorant about all this stuff, but it is clear to me that Manny knew precisely what he was doing. Or at least his doctor did. If I got this correctly, HCG is used by men to counteract what prolonged use of steriods causes. So by that reasoning, Manny has actually been using steriods for quite a long time. He wouldn't need the HCG otherwise.
   
   It would be quite an irony if that were the case: using steriods for years, never getting caught, and only gets caught using something to counteract what he had been getting away with using.

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7. 7. jcap50 11:31 AM 5/10/09

   JHSibal, has certainly and with a very articulate nature, as I believe summed up this issue. People have always done whatever it has taken to win, Wars, Sports, Business, and of course Love! That is human nature, as well as competitive people! The money is a culprit too, when someone can earn 100 or even 1000 times what the average person can earn with an education and hard work, well do I need to same more? There was a simple question asked to world class athletes is the 1980's, "If you could take a pill that would assure you a gold medal, but would take five years from your life, would you take the pill"? Over 80% said "YES"! The sports writers, yes the ones that did not have the talent to even play at the college level, are the ones who say the most. The question is "What would you do if faced with the same decision to make, given the all of the same factors these men and women face, think about it!

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8. 8. SageNot 02:41 PM 5/10/09

   What lies at the bottom of this controversy is the "unfairness" of it all. Legitimate players by the 1000's don't take this juice, yet they're in competition with the illegal juicers. You're damned right that all guilty parties should never see a Hall of Fame anywhere. Hall of SHAME YES!!!
   
   Why the various player unions have not joined forces with the league in policing these cheaters is beyond me. The clean players ought to withhold their dues & maybe even boycott the unions until justice for all is the byword.
   
   

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9. 9. ABlack 12:03 PM 12/13/12

   we should put the millions spent on anti-steroid propaganda into making the use of steroids safer.
   
   Logged in via Twitter.com/<a href="http://buysteroidsuk.co/">buysteroidsuk</a>

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