Testosterone doping can easily be masked with green tea
Last reviewed: 20.11.2021
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Green tea inhibits the excretion of testosterone with urine, making its relationship with the precursor hormone quite legitimate in terms of anti-doping rules.
An athlete can improve his own result by injecting a testosterone hormone. The World Anti-Doping Agency has known this for a long time and constantly conducts checks, measuring the level of testosterone and epitestosterone in the urine. Epitestosterone is the precursor of testosterone, and if the precursor in the urine is not enough, and testosterone itself - a lot, it says one thing: the hormone was injected artificially. Doctors state the use of doping, and the athlete is disqualified.
But testosterone dope can, as it turned out, easy to disguise green tea.
Researchers from the University of Kingston (United Kingdom) found that flavonoids of catechins contained in green tea suppress the work of the enzyme UDF-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT2B17). This enzyme sews up the residue of glucuronic acid to the testosterone molecule, and the hormone, provided with a glucuronic adjunct, is quickly excreted in the urine from the body. If you suppress the work of the enzyme, the amount of testosterone in the urine will fall, and the ratio of testosterone and its predecessor will become, as it were, normal.
Catechins are in green and white tea, but not in black. According to scientists, there is no need to overdose: just drink a relatively large cup of green tea, so that the level of testosterone in the urine falls. So athletes can easily lock up testosterone in the body, getting all the bonuses from the hormone and not being afraid of being caught in doping.
The results of experiments scientists published in the journal Steroids, and also specifically announced the opening of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Obviously, now the Anti-Doping Police will have to hastily modify their methods to learn how to determine illegal amounts of testosterone even against the background of green tea.