Doping on Albuterol?I saw on the news today the story of Greg Hardy from last night. I don’t r

Doping on Albuterol?I saw on the news today the story of Greg Hardy from last night. I don’t really know much about him but he is a UFC fighter who “won” a fight last night only to have it overturned because apparently he used an inhaler during the break after the second round. This has caused some controversy with lots of people who don’t know what they are talking about accusing him of cheating.  This includes other UFC and MMA fighters on twitter, and even Dana White went on record to state that he thought what Hardy had done was “crazy”.  It turns out Hardy does have a prescription for an albuterol inhaler for exercise induced asthma, which is a real thing and is quite common.  It is a legal to use drug according to the WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) and apparently an official or the referee gave him permission to use the inhaler after round 2.  Then after the fight the Massachusetts Athletic Commission stepped in and declared the fight “no contest”.So as many of you may know I am a Respiratory Therapist by trade and I work in a hospital, with my duties including treating patients in the ER, ICU, general floors, Maternity, Cardiology, and even the psych ward.  Albuterol is the Respiratory Therapist’s bread and butter drug, so I know a lot about it.  This is not the first time I have heard of controversy over the issue of possible “albuterol doping”.  I have heard of endurance athletes such as runners and bicyclists using albuterol to enhance their cardio pulmonary systems.  Can this be done? Can a healthy person take albuterol to enhance lung compacity or oxygenations.  Short answer: no.  Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooAlbuterol is a short term bronchodilator, its purpose is to reverse bronchoconstriction (swelling of the airways) typically caused by asthma, COPD, or some type of infection.  Since a healthy person is not in a state of bronchoconstriction, it will not do anything at all.  It does not increase lung capacity or strengthen the lungs or give a boost to the cardiopulmonary system in any way.  It treats illness, it doesn’t improve on a normal state of health.  Nor do inhaled corticosteroids, they are not the same thing as metabolic steroids typically used by athletes as a performance enhancer.  A healthy person using albuterol would be the same as a person without a cut putting a bandaid on his or her arm. It serves no purpose.Overall this is one of the things that kind of frustrates me about my profession.  Often our therapies and drugs are viewed as some kind of miracle cure or panacea and we are wizards who practice a mystical art. I do no know how many times doctors have ordered albuterol treatments for patients with problems that albuterol cannot treat.  My colleagues often call albuterol “all-better-all” because of the number of off label uses and near magical properties people seem to ascribe to it, especially doctors.  In reality albuterol is just a simple beta agonist distilled from Chuck Norris’ tears, which has its uses and limitations.BTW the way, guessing from how Greg Hardy used his inhaler, he has poor inhaler technique and probably only got 1% of the drug in his system. -- source link

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