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I'm gonna go out on a limb and give Sherk the benefit of the doubt. There have been a lot of papers posted recently indicating that Nandrolone levels of much higher than 6ng/mL are possible without anabolic steroid use:
http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/...drug-tests.htm
"Foremost is the dearth of scientific and medical data that substantiates the decision of a positive drug test.
What is known amounts to an acknowledgement that nandrolone, or at least its metabolites, are endogenous steroid and from a few small studies that the urinary levels of it’s metabolites are assumed to be very low. As such a cut off level of 2 and 5 ng/ml has been set for men and women respectively as the upper limit of endogenous NA in the urine in an internal IOC Memorandum in August, 1998. Even in this miniscule sampling it is obvious that even in normal people that this contention is wrong since
an early study found elevated levels of NA, between 9 and 37 ng/ml, in three male volunteers who had not used the anabolic steroid nandrolone."
...
"The research project into nandrolone confirmed the suspicions of many when it announced today its conclusion that a combination of exercise and nutritional supplements could lead to a positive finding. At the same time, analysis discovered that supplements taken by the athletes did not appear to contain nandrolone.
The working group, which consisted of Professor Ron Maughan, Professor Eric Newsholme, Professor Clyde Williams and Professor Ed Hillhouse, undertook an experiment which, it said, demonstrated 'an urgent need for a full investigation of the factors that can give rise to positive nandrolone tests in athletes.'
The test involved three athletes who had been reported as positive for the drug and three healthy volunteers. Over a seven-day period, the athletes trained but did not take supplements and submitted urine samples for analysis, which all proved negative or 'at the low end of the normal range.' However,
when two of the athletes started to take the supplements they had taken prior to their positive tests, one of them returned levels of nandrolone consistently above 10ng/ml, which represents a level five times the legal limit for males.
When the three healthy volunteers were given the same supplements, as were used by the athlete who returned a positive result in the experiment, only the subject who was training was found to be positive. This volunteer's urine recorded a level in excess of 10ng/ml on the second day.
In a statement, the working party declared: 'From these preliminary results, we conclude that a combination of exercise and dietary supplements, none of which appears to contain a prohibited substance, can result in a positive nandrolone finding.'"
Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and Doping Control Center, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.
[email protected]
"Nandrolone is one of the synthetic anabolic steroids banned in sports and has been a popular substance abused by athletes in recent years. One of its major metabolites, 19-norandrosterone (19-NA), has been used as a determinant for drug violations in sports. Current reports regarding nandrolone-positive cases have been related to intake of some nandrolone-free nutritional supplements. The aim of this study was to learn whether if a nutritional supplement sold by over-the-counter (OTC) nutritional stores could yield the same metabolic products as that of nandrolone. If so, what is (are) the substance(s) that contributed to the nandrolone metabolites? To determine the content of an OTC nutritional supplement, a tablet was dissolved in methanol, followed by N-methyl-N-trimethylsilyltrifluoroacetamide (MSTFA)-trimethyliodosilane (TMIS) derivatization prior to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. The collected urine samples underwent extraction, enzymatic hydrolysis, and derivatization before the analyses of GC-MS. The results showed that seven anabolic steroids were found as contaminants in the nutritional supplement, in addition to six that were listed in the ingredients by the manufacturer. We confirmed previous reports that administration of the OTC supplement could produce a positive urine test for nandrolone metabolites. Furthermore, the results from excretion studies showed that 19-NA and 19-noretiocholanolone (19-NE) were present in urine after consuming the nutritional supplement, nandrolone, 19-nor-4-androsten-3,17-dione, 19-nor-4-androsten-3beta,17beta-diol, and 19-nor-5-androsten-3beta,17beta-diol. The 19-NA concentrations in urine were generally higher than that of 19-NE (19-NA/19-NE ratio > 1.0) especially during the early stage of excretion, that is, before 6 h post-administration. After this period of time, the concentrations of 19-NA and 19-NE fluctuated and might even have reversed (19-NA/19-NE ratio < 1.0) in their ratio, that is, higher yield in 19-NE than that in 19-NA.
On the basis of this study, we postulate that some doping violations of nandrolone could be attributed by indiscriminate administration of the OTC nutritional supplements that contained 19-norsteroids."
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QFT, unfortunately we don't know the motives behind the people who did these studies...but it is in line with what I beleive. Today there is too mcuh anti-steroid propaganda and too little understanding of nutritional technology.
It is a shame that sherk's name will forever be tainted after this event unless the unlikely possibility of sherk bringing a complete scientific reform with regards to steroids comes about (A reform I beleive is 15 years in the making)...but odds are he won't be the one to do such. GL to him...hopefully he can at least keep his belt and fight BJ.
The problem is that if he's let off the hook...tons of other fighters will realize they can lie. The only thing I beleive sherk can do is put himself up 24/7 watch showing no steroid use and reproduce levels above 6ng/mL. Unfortunately that is an almost impossible task, who can be watched over 24/7?