Beijing Olympics 2008: Michael Phelps is a Sonic Doper, Washington Post Science Writer Says, Quotes Based in Rehovot Scientific Doping Journal

or Listening to an iPod Is Like Taking Drugs

by Rick Weiss
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Former Washington Post Science Reporter

Imagine you have qualified for the Olympics and are walking down a Beijing street the day before your event, when a vendor gives you a covert signal to come closer. You approach warily as he opens a flap of his trench coat, revealing something half tucked into an inside pocket.

“Pssst,” he says. “You want to win gold? Guaranteed to help. And perfectly legal.”

“What is it?” you ask, as he shows you a mysterious device, smaller than a credit card and with wires dangling from it.

“Intracranial transducers,’” he says in practiced English, pointing to the ends of the wires. “Stick them in your ears and they focus the brain, increase blood oxygen, prepare muscles for action. Made here in China.”

“So it’s a doping device!” you say with disgust.

“No, no,” the man exclaims in a hoarse whisper, looking around to make sure no one else has heard your incriminating comment. “Like I said, totally legal.”

“So what is it called?” you ask.

He looks askance again, then leans over and whispers in your ear: “‘iPod,’” he says. “We call it ‘iPod.’ It worked for Phelps. It can work for you.”

***

It is now a widely known fact that Michael Phelps, winner of a record-breaking eight gold medals in this year’s Olympics, is an iPod fanatic. In the minutes before diving into the pool, those trademark white wires were almost invariably hanging from his ears. He has confessed at various times to using tunes by Eminem, Young Jeezy, Lil’ Wayne and Jay-Z to motivate him and enhance his concentration.

When broken down to its mechanical elements, an iPod is nothing more, and nothing less, than what my hypothetical Chinese huckster was pitching—a device that transduces electrical energy into acoustical energy, namely music.

You see where I am going with this. And before I go any further, why don’t you get it out of your system? Let me have it. I know what’s coming because soon after I began to wonder about the parallels between iPoding and doping, an Israel-based medical doctor and scientist with whom I have communicated occasionally in the past—Alexei Koudinov, who among other things edits an online scientific publication called The Doping Journal—sent me a blog in which he raised the same issue. And that blog, I saw, had led to instant and effusive derision by his online readers.

“Who pays this guy to think up things like this?” one respondent wrote, after Koudinov argued the undoubtedly extreme case that Phelps should give up his medals. Others called the idea that music should be classified as a performance enhancer “asinine,” “silliness,” “a crock,” “ridiculous,” and “mean-spirited.”

One clever commentator claimed that “The writer of the article is qualified
to write for that [Doping] Journal: He is a Dope!” Another, less clever, called Koudinov’s posting “a waste of ink.” In fact, as with most online postings, no ink was involved.

But let’s pursue the idea a bit further. When broken down to its mechanical elements, an iPod is nothing more, and nothing less, than what my hypothetical Chinese huckster was pitching—a device that transduces electrical energy into acoustical energy, namely music. And as everyone knows, music can have profound psychological and physiological effects. It can relax a listener. It can anger or enthrall. It can excavate deep emotions and energy.

If that is not specific enough, consider research published in the Journal of Nursing Research in 2003, which showed that hospitalized infants who had music played for them had significantly higher oxygen levels in their blood than other babies . Now consider that the 2008 World Anti-Doping Code of the World Anti-Doping Agency, in Article M1 under the category of “Prohibited Methods,” bans methods of “artificially enhancing the uptake, transport or delivery of oxygen….”

I suppose this raises the interesting legal and philosophical question of what is “artificial.” In the words of one especially cynical blogger: “As just about everyone knows, breathing increases blood oxygenation. Should this also be considered illegal?” I won’t go that far. But even if normal breathing is acceptable, what about the arguably less-natural activities known as deep breathing or stretching or limbering up?

Moreover, music can affect more than mere oxygen levels. Koudinov cites research by Stefan Koelsch of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, who has published research on biological responses to music. According to Koelsch, music can induce biochemical “relaxing effects.” Given all the talk during this year’s Olympics about the risks and downsides of “having the jitters,” which can throw even the best of gymnasts off their balance beams, relaxation is clearly a big potential benefit.

Yet anti-jitter drugs, such as beta blockers, are expressly prohibited in many Olympic sports (including marksmanship, as evidenced last week when the North Korean Olympic shooter Kim Jong Su was stripped of his silver and bronze medals after blood tests came up positive for propranolol, which can slow a heart that is racing from nervousness and, in so doing, reduce anxiety and enhance concentration).

Phelps may even have received a double benefit by yanking out his ear buds in the last minute or two before competing. Research published in 2005 suggests that intense music followed by a sudden silent pause may be just the ticket for someone poised at the edge of an Olympic pool, since the music itself can boost arousal and the sudden silence that follows can induce, in handy sequence, a wave of relaxation.

“Music, especially in trained subjects, may first concentrate attention during faster rhythms, then induce relaxation during pauses,” that study concluded.

...continue reading full article at the ScienceProgress.org web site

Source: Rick Weiss. Is Michael Phelps A Sonic Doper? (Listening to an iPod Is Like Taking Drugs) Bioethics: Science Progress by AmericanProgress.org Published online 22 August 2008 [FullText]

Rehovot Restaurants: Dining Out

I have followed the culinary career of Eliezer Loya with interest since 1992 when he left his job as chef to the American ambassador and took over the kitchen of Tel Aviv's Dakota, where he demonstrated a true knack for seafood. I especially recall his expertise in preparing crab in a Pernod sauce. Over the years, at various restaurants, including Rose and Kazanki, Loya continued to make us happy with simple and tasty dishes. He is especially known for matching well-seasoned sauces to shrimp, langoustine, calamari and other seafood. About six months ago, Loya decided to show us he has an equally firm grasp on meat, as well, and his new Rehovot-based restaurant, Fresco, proves just that.

Located not far from Rehovot's industrial area, Fresco has a simple but inviting decor. The menu offers both appetizers and entrees, as well as a salad and pasta buffet for openers. We approached the buffet and the first plate I filled consisted of two kinds of eggplant, large chunks and thin slices, which were first grilled and then treated to a rich veal sauce; the second, fried together with garlic, was sprinkled over with fresh herbs. I also helped myself to a flavorful and chunkier than usual Turkish salad, and a long, fried and lightly pickled green pepper that proved just as flaming hot as the waiter said it would be.

My second plate took a different direction and included several slices of soft Italian-style mortadella sausage, a few slices of spicy French-style cervelat sausage and just a few bits of matjas and pickled herring, each of which proved tasty, especially when eaten with homemade challah-like bread and butter. While we were dining, our waiter brought over several other dishes: an excellent, airy and just salty enough ikra, kosher pickled cucumbers and two delicious pickled tomatoes. All of these called to mind the olden days in Jewish restaurants in New York City's lower East Side.

Eastern European delicacies

After these offerings, we shifted to more formal appetizers. We ordered a small platter of tissue-thin slices of smoked ham, the fat of which was wisely left intact, as well as a plate of equally thin and excellent slices of oven-dried beef jerky. As an extra first course, we ordered a plate of the restaurant's homemade patrician pork sausages, which were long, firm and bursting with rich, garlicky flavor and cooked in root beer; they were best eaten with our hands and dipped in sharp mustard. We also ordered a portion of the calf's foot jelly. This traditional Eastern European dish, often associated with the Jewish kitchen, is made by making an aspic by slowly boiling a calf's foot in water together with onions, carrots and garlic, and then combining the liquid with some meat off the bone. In this case, the dish was splendid: a firm aspic with an abundance of meat, served with lemon wedges.

Following a well-needed cigarette break on the terrace, we returned for our main courses. I ordered the Romanian-style kebabs. These particularly plump kebabs are made of beef and beef fat ground together with garlic, pepper, caraway seeds, coriander, marjoram, cayenne pepper and baking soda; the kebabs were first grilled and then cooked in a medium-hot oven. If it had not been a hot summer day, I might have ordered a second helping of the the crisp and juicy kebabs. One of my companions opted for the baby spareribs, which were done very well in a mustard and honey marinade, which added an appealing hot sweetness to the soft, just fatty enough meat. My other companion did not fare quite as well, as her pork fillet in a red wine and beef marrow sauce was just a bit too dry.

That there is a distinct Eastern European touch to many of the dishes was undeniable, especially in light of one of the desserts we shared, a version of the well-known Hungarian-Romanian papanash. This rendition was a rich cheese-based dough formed into a large doughnut-like shape, deep-fried and served with a sour cream and cherry sauce. Perhaps best described as "melt-in-your-mouth" soft and full of both calories and flavor, the dessert was splendid.

Wisdom would have had us stop there but we continued with a portion of chocolate cake, the cake itself with a distinct resemblance to a brownie with walnuts, which was topped with a rich chocolate concoction that, although said to be a mousse was far closer in flavor and density to a marquise. That gave us no cause for complaint. Nor did the excellent chocolate sauce that topped the cake, made from a combination of fine bittersweet chocolate and melted butter that had been blended together.

The bill for three for such a sumptuous meal, including espressos, came to a quite reasonable NIS 350. Despite the fact this is basically a meat restaurant, if you visit during the hot months of the year, I suggest staying with either white wine or, alternatively as we did, with the good, ice-cold Czech draught beer (half liter mugs cost NIS 24 each). This is a place to avoid if you are counting calories or cholesterol. But for those in search of the simple but very good life, this is the place to be.

Fresco: 23 Herzl Street, Rehovot. Open daily from 12 P.M.-12 A.M. Tel: (08) 934-3788.

Source: Daniel Rogov. Dining Out: The very good simple life. Haaretz (14 August 2008) [FullText]

Two boys diagnosed with cave fever at Rehovot's Kaplan Hospital. After visits to Carmel caves

Two boys who visited the Carmel caves near Haifa with their families were stricken by "cave fever," known among doctors as tick-borne relapsing fever. It is caused by Borrelia bacteria, which live on cave ticks, which are in turn sometimes carried on the backs of porcupines.

A 15-year-old boy was brought Monday to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot and quickly diagnosed by emergency room doctors as having cave fever.

Last week, Iyar Shmuelevich, a six-year-old boy from Kfar Bilu, was diagnosed with the fever as well. Both had been in the Carmel caves, and both suffered from weakness and high fever.

Complications can, rarely, lead to death. After receiving a large dose of antibiotics, the older boy recovered. The younger one has improved with antibiotics but is still being treated.

Kaplan doctor Uri Bella said the Health Ministry would be asked to look into the infections at the caves...

Source: Judy Siegel-Itzkovich. Two boys diagnosed with cave fever after visits to Carmel caves (12 August 2008) JPost.com [FullText]

Does doping by the pool invalidates Phelps Beijing 2008 Olympic swimming gold, world records? Yes, Rehovot scientist says

By Alexei Koudinov

Also available at Rick Maeses's Beijing Olympics Blog Of the Baltimore Sun Sports Section (13 August 2008)

Did you notice that Michael Phelps wears earphones and is listening music just before his every Olympic start, at Beijing's Olympiad Water Cube pool deck, be it finals or semifinals? I first noticed that before his first gold swim on August 10: Phelps removed earphones 2 minutes before the start, and he was the only swimmer who worn earphones at the pool deck. Intriguing scientific evidence testifies: Listening to music improves blood oxygen capacity and is a performance enhancement.

There could be several mechanisms, says Stefan Koelsch of Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, in Leipzig, Germany, who has published 40 articles on the subject of how the body reacts to music. Dr. Koelsch says that "music can have influences on the breathing rate (e.g. via emotional effects such an increased arousal) which will alter oxygen levels in the blood, or relaxing effects (so that fewer muscles consume oxygen, which also increases oxygen levels)." He says that his group "has reported clear changes in breathing rate on a conference last year, with breathing rate being higher during pleasant music." In line with Koelsch conclusion are the data of the research article by Luciano Bernardi group of the University of Pavia, Italy, implying that the withdrawal of music shortly before the swim race induces relaxing effects noted by Koelsch.

Evidence comes from the research done with human infants. It showed that music causes better saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen (a so-called SPO(2) parameter, compared with control subjects receiving no music, indicating an "enhancement of oxygen transfer") and that increased by music, oxygen saturation returns to the baseline faster compared with control, making it hard to detect the transient oxygen saturation shortly thereafter. While Koelsch preferred his own explanation on how music can improve body oxygen capacity, Dr. Alexander Cherniak, a researcher at the Chuchalin Pulmonology Institute of Moscow, Russia agrees that medical experimentation with infants allows good standardization of the research protocol, appropriate statistics and could be projected onto the adults.

So what? Can one call listening to music shortly before entering the swimming pool for competition a performance enhancement? Yes, say both Koelsch and Cherniak. If so, how long could this enhancement last? "Duration [of the effect is] not certain, from seconds to minutes," adds Koelsch. Beijing Olympic and world records by Phelps fall into the expert's projected time frame. Yes, testifies Dr. Vance Bergeron, of Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, Laboratoire de Physique in Lyon, France: "[M]usic next to the swimming pool, less than 2 minutes before the start could indicate performance enhancement because of transient increase of blood oxygen capacity."

Bergeron adds that such a performance enhancement is "a bio-chemical feedback mechanism from an external source. The external source in the present case, music, is available to everyone, not harmful to the athlete or his peers, and carried out under full disclosure, hence I do not see how this conflicts with fair play and honesty," but says that "I am not an expert on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)."

Well, one doesn't have to be an expert on WADA policies, as the scientific evidence provided herein enforces all to take WADA code as is. The Prohibited List 2008 of The World Anti-Doping Code reads:

PROHIBITED METHODS
Article M1. ENHANCEMENT OF OXYGEN TRANSFER
The following are prohibited:
2. Artificially enhancing the uptake, transport or delivery of oxygen...

Straightforward ruling results in a straightforward conclusion: Listening to music through earphones before the start is in line with other measures prohibited. Therefore, Phelps' Beijing swimming golds is faked and should go to others who battle for it fairly.

Doping Journal, www.dopingjournal.org , is an independent free online publication on every aspect of doping science and antidoping policies. The journal serves an unbiased research and development of the science on doping, fair and science based transparent anti-doping laws, transparency of policies and the translation of the research into routine lab practice. Special objective is to protect athletes from the misconduct by WADA, IOC, CAS and Sports Federations. The journal aims to become a leader and worldwide forum on doping science and practices by all interested parties, scientists, medical professionals, athletes and lawyers. Alexei Koudinov and The Doping Journal have no competing financial interests.

Woman suspected of producing drugs at Rehovot home

Roni Singer-Heruti

Police on Thursday requested a remand extension for a Rehovot resident suspected of producing drugs in her home.

Following information received by Rehovot police, detectives arrived at the woman's apartment late Wednesday evening and uncovered 20,000 pills which, according to police, included a "psychoactive" substance. They also found a liquid that could allegedly be sufficient for the production of one million pills.
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Police admitted, though, that the pills confiscated were unidentified, and apparently were not listed as prohibited drugs. Police explained that even if this is not a case of illegal drugs, this is an offense of "negligent handling of medicine" or another pharmaceutical crime.

The woman, who lives with her three children, is also accused of child neglect.

Source: Roni Singer-Heruti. Woman suspected of producing drugs at Rehovot home, Haaretz (7 August 2008) [FullText]

Russian novelist, former dissident, Solzhenitsyn dies

Russian novelist and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose works detailed the horrors of Stalin's Soviet labor camps, has died at 89, Russian news agencies reported Monday.

His son, Stepan Solzhenitsyn, told The Associated Press his father died of heart failure late Sunday at his home near Moscow, Russia.

Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 for "The First Circle," Alexander Solzhenitsyn was considered a moral voice for Russia. His works centered on issues of good and evil, materialism and salvation.

His three-volume "Gulag Archipelago" unveiled the horrors of the Soviet labor camps, where he himself was imprisoned for eight years.

"Even as a child, without any prompting from others, I wanted to be a writer and, indeed, I turned out a good deal of the usual juvenilia," Solzhenitsyn said in a short autobiography written for the Nobel Foundation.

Even so, Solzhenitsyn, who served in the Russian Army during World War II, spent much of his life as a mathematician.

See photos of Solzhenitsyn

He was arrested in February 1945 for writing letters critical of Stalin and was sentenced to eight years at labor camps, which would provide the context of his future writings.

"During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known," he said in the Nobel autobiography. "Finally, at the age of 42, this secret authorship began to wear me down."

He published his first work, a novella titled "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," in a literary journal in 1959. The story was based on his own experiences at a labor camp in Kazakhstan where he worked as a miner, bricklayer and foundryman, and was later printed on a wider scale in 1961.

After publishing several more works, including the novel "Cancer Ward" -- a fictional piece based on Solzhenitsyn's own successful treatment at a clinic in Uzbekistan during his post-labor camp years of exile from 1953 to June 1956 -- he won the Nobel Prize for "The First Circle."

However, Solzhenitsyn didn't attend the ceremony for fear he would not be allowed re-entry into the Soviet Union.

Three years later, his "Gulag Archipelago" was published in Paris, France.

In 1974, he was accused of treason, stripped of his citizenship and deported to West Germany. He accepted an invitation to teach at Stanford University in California, then later moved to the woods of Cavendish, Vermont, where he lived with his family for years.

In 1990, his citizenship was restored, and he moved back to Russia in 1994.

He published his final original work in June 2001 with "200 Years Together: 1775-1995," about the history of Jews in Russia.

Last year, then-President Vladimir Putin bestowed the country's highest humanitarian award upon him. Solzhenitsyn's second wife, Natalya, accepted the award on his behalf because he was too frail to attend the public ceremony.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed his condolences to Solzhenitsyn's wife and sons, Medvedev's press secretary told the Russian news agency Interfax.

Source: CNN European Edition (4 August 2008) [Full Text]

All About Alexander Solzhenitsyn