I went to a drug test for a very large adventure race. At my test I stepped up to the table and told them, "I am likley to test positive for caffeine and some other stimulants- I didn't know we were going to be tested."

I hit the caffeine and ephedrine hard in planning before the race since we had to be up all night to plug waypoints in to our GPS's, which were mandatory for this race.

I had a shitload of the stuff in my system- I was fully wired. I tested negative. No one in the event tested positive.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

But what exactly were they testing for?

you have no problem saying you used Ephedrine for a race???

Also, are you the least concerned of the effects ephedrine has on your heart?

This was probably years ago, before it was banned.

Fossett is a pretty amazing guy Tom, but your tag line needs some spaces above it :-)

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http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

Does that include the pseudo-ephedrines in over-the-counter antihistamines/decongestants?

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http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

not sure of the dosage of these...and I think pseudo-Eph. is off the list now...not sure though...
but with premature atrial contractions, I am sure not going to use meds with pseudo eph.

It's, for example, in Claritin-D which a lot of people take on a daily basis.

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http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

a lot of people take on a regular basis a lot of stuff which is on the list of banned substances.
anyhow, my wife got sinusitis every now and then and can feel the pounding of her heart when she takes something with pseudo-ephedrine...

Well pseudoephedrine is an alkaloid of the Chinese herb Ma Huang. It's very easy and cheap to test for, so if you have had it in your system and it wasn't picked up, they tested your sample in the round file.

The active compounds in the herb are the alkaloids ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, phenyl- (something or other I forgot and don't want to look up) aka norephedrine, and cathine aka norpseudoephedrine.

Pseudoephedrine is now legal in sports, but I don’t know if it is limited like caffeine. They all work similarly, but they are different and do slightly different things (for example some alkaloids are more thermogenic than others... but I don't want to get into that).

Ephedrine enhances the release of norepinephrine and stimulates alpha and beta receptors, it stimulates heart rate, thereby increasing cardiac output. Pseudoephedrine relaxes bronchial smooth muscle and hence is used mainly as a decongestant and for temporary relief of some asthma symptoms. This is probably why/where the rationale came for it to be on the banned list.

Believe it or not, it is not all that well studied (relatively) in athletic performance. The few studies that did address ephedrine in athletes showed only minor positive effects if any of using ephedrine alone (from what I remember). I can say for sure it's definitely not EPO like in nature.

It's my understanding that ephedrine is banned more for the health risks than because it's an amazing performance enhancer

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That’s right. Ephedra is banned for sale in the US as a dietary supplement, which has nothing to do with the athletic performance or decongestant characteristics. As a dietary supplement it has been used primarily in weight loss products, and mixed with all kinds of other things (because supplement companies can), but typically caffeine was in there somewhere.

Anyway what was happening was that people would take an Ephedra based dietary supplement, which slightly raised body temperature and increased HR. Then they would go out and run in 103 degree heat and have problems (usually cardiac). These problems were magnified if you were overweight.

This is one reason why ephedrine alkaloids in decongestants weren’t subject to the ban, though ephedrine alkaloids and pseudoephedrine alkaloids work slightly differently and it’s the latter that is usually in decongestants while the former is usually in weight loss supplements, unless you get it in complete herb form in which case you would have gotten all the alkaloids to some degree or another, but since there are no guarantees of purity with supplements, those percentages can vary wildly from one brand to another. The supplement world swims in a pool of partial clarity which is why I dislike it so much.

My guess is that it’s the decongestant nature of Ephedra’s alkaloids that got it on the banned list for athletics (even though it's not well studied for this), not ephedra’s appetite suppressant/thermogenic properties which got it banned for sale in the US as a weight loss supplement.