Recently in Sports medicine Category

D'oh! Just when you thought you dodged an IOC bullet, the overseer of the Olympic Games announced yesterday that it will further analyze blood and urine samples collected from athletes at this summer's Beijing games. First on the retroactive testing list is Roche's long-acting red-cell booster Mircera.* But the IOC also warns that it will store the Beijing samples for 8 years to enable additional analyses when new drug tests become available.

In Beijing, 4770 doping tests were conducted on blood or urine, covering the period from July 27th to August 24th. But only 6 out of approximately 11,000 athletes suffered sanctions as a result of positive tests, an unexpected, low number (Table). Therefore the IOC will retest samples with a recently validated assay for Mircera. The announcement comes on the heels of news this week that 3 more Tour de France racers tested positively for the substance.

Disqualified Athlete		Country	Sport	Highest Placement	Detected Substance
1	Lyudmila Blonska	Ukraine	Heptathlon	2nd	methyltestosterone
2	Igor Razoronov	Ukraine	Weightlifting	6th	nandrolone
3	Fani Halkia	Greece	Hurdles	—	methyltrienolone
4	Jong Su Kim	North Korea	Shooting	2nd	propanolol
5	Isabel Moreno	Spain	Cycling	—	Epo
6	Thi Ngan Thuong Do	Vietnam	Gymnastics	15th	furosemide

(IOC decisions regarding 3 other alleged Olympic doping cases, Belarussian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tiskhan [testosterone] and Polish kayaker Adam Seroczynski [clenbuterol], are pending.)

* A pegylated version of recombinant erythropoietin.

Image of a freakishly bulked-up Lyudmila Blonska from Wikipedia.

Asked on behalf of mothers everywhere, given Michael Phelps's crazy calorie consumption.

HT: NY Post by way of the WSJ Health Blog and every other conceivable media outlet.

At Saturday's Olympics, the black, vaguely calligraphic design on the shoulder of volleyballer Kerri Walsh most certainly prompted the following question in a range of languages: What the hell is that?

A few curious Web posters thought it might be a fierce tattoo. But no, NBC's Olympics coverage says it's black Kinesio tape on Walsh's right shoulder, which was surgically treated last winter. One commentator said the tape eases pain, stabilizes joints, increases circulation, and reduces lymphedema. If so, that's some tape.

The official web site for the product emphasizes the benefits of the tape—it's particularly elastic and sticky—and the all-important taping method—which accounts for the funky design on Walsh's shoulder. The 4-inch-wide tape can be cut lengthwise for "Y" applications (which are designed to stabilize muscle or prevent its contraction or otherwise do something nice), like that along Walsh's scapular spine and posterior deltoid (see graphic below). In Walsh's case, another Y application was applied to her middle deltoid, along with uncut tape that crisscrossed the joint. Kinesio tape evidently comes in a variety of colors, which (as far as I can tell) are for fashion purposes alone—or in the case of black, to intimidate.

The Kinesio web site claims that taping "alleviates pain and facilitates lymphatic drainage by microscopically lifting the skin. The taped portion forms convolutions in the skin, thus increasing interstitial space. The result is that pressure and irritation are taken off the neural and sensory receptors, alleviating pain. Pressure is gradually taken off the lymphatic system, allowing it to channel more freely." Nice-sounding words to the medically uneducated, and bullshitty to the rest of us. Moreover, I'm not entirely sure how one would even go about proving these physiologic effects.

Evidently only one randomized clinical trial has been conducted to evaluate Kinesio taping for any musculoskeletal condition. A quasi-double-blind* study, published just last month in the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy, assessed the short-term self-reported effects of Kinesio or sham taping in 42 young adults with rotator-cuff conditions. The investigators observed immediate improvement in pain-free shoulder abduction with Kinesio taping but no other statistically significant benefit (range of movement, pain, or disability) over sham taping during a 6-day treatment period. The authors suggest why Kinesio taping may improve immediate pain-free movement (gate-control theory, anyone?) but acknowledge their complete speculation on the subject.

* One author was blinded to the taping methods used, and taping methods were different between Kinesio and sham subjects.