Copyright 2006 Chicago Tribune Company
                                Chicago Tribune

                              June 23, 2006 Friday
                             Chicago Final Edition

SECTION:  NEWS ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 650 words

HEADLINE: Some cyclists find that Viagra increases speed in mountains

BYLINE: By Miriah Meyer, Tribune staff reporter.

BODY:

   Researchers reported Thursday that cyclists may be able to increase their
performance by taking Viagra--their athletic performance, that is.

   Some cyclists have more trouble than others in sustaining high levels of
exertion at mountainous elevations. The new study found that Viagra, a drug most
commonly used to treat male impotence, helped overcome that problem.

   For these cyclists, taking Viagra improved their performance up to 45
percent, which would allow a cyclist racing in the high Rocky Mountains to cover
a stretch of road in 39 minutes that would otherwise take an hour.

   The findings, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, come at a time
when competitive cycling has been struggling to prevent athletes from using
banned drugs and other methods of bolstering performance. Viagra is not
currently among the blacklisted drugs.

   The study's senior researcher, California physiologist Anne Friedlander,
emphasized that Viagra did not improve the performance of all cyclists. It
helped "level the playing field" for those most affected by altitude, she said.

   Hoping to learn more about why high altitudes affect people differently,
Friedlander and other researchers at Stanford University and the Palo Alto
Health Care System studied 10 male competitive cyclists.

   The cyclists were tested on an exercise bike under normal conditions and
while breathing air low in oxygen. Some were given sugar pills, and the others
took Viagra.

   "The participants told us that while they were riding the bike they didn't
know whether they were on the drug or not," Friedlander said. "However, what
they did say was that in the showers afterward they pretty much knew which pill
they had been given."

   Friedlander got the idea for the study when Viagra hit the market last year
under a different name, Revatio, as a medication for pulmonary hypertension.

   Pulmonary hypertension occurs when the blood vessels in the lungs constrict,
decreasing the amount of blood flowing through the oxygen-rich lung tissue. The
result is lower levels of oxygen in the blood, which causes patients to feel
tired, dizzy and short of breath.

   People who have similar symptoms in the mountains often are experiencing
temporary pulmonary hypertension, said Friedlander.

   Viagra counteracts the effects because it is a blood vessel dilator. It
relieves constriction in the vessels and allows blood to flow more freely
through some organs in the body.

   The findings of the study could benefit people working at high altitude, such
as military personnel operating in the mountains of Afghanistan or mountaineers
climbing Himalayan peaks.

   But in the world of competitive sports, boosting performance with a drug can
be considered unfair.

   "Physiological gifts are what separate [athletes] from one another and what
separate them greatly from the general public," said Sean Petty, chief of staff
for USA Cycling, the organization that oversees competitive bike racing in the
U.S.

   It is illegal for an athlete to take any drug to unnaturally increase
performance, Petty said. As for Viagra, "if it's determined at some point to be
a performance-enhancing drug, I'm sure it will be on the banned list," he added.

   Friedlander, however, has a hunch that some athletes are already taking
Viagra for competition.

   That concerns Dr. Rajive Tandon, a pulmonary hypertension specialist at Rush
Medical Center. Tandon said very few studies, and none of them long-term, have
looked at the use of Revatio, or Viagra, to treat pulmonary hypertension in the
general population.

   "These drugs can't be used indiscriminately. You have to study them in a
certain population to see if there are side-effects," said Tandon.

   More studies are on the way, according to Friedlander. Next summer she plans
to test subjects for longer periods of time and in real-world mountain
conditions. She also wants to find out if women will similarly benefit from the
drug.