
East German Doping Victims Die 10 to 12 Years Earlier – psychologist - Tomte
https://www.zeit.de/sport/2018-03/doping-east-germany-research-harald-freyberger-english/komplettansicht
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djrogers
I was oringally put off by the ‘victim’ terminology, however I was unaware
that _children_ were systematically given PEDs and told they were vitamins!
This is horrific, and I’m glad some light is being shed on the long term
effects this has had on those affected.

~~~
phobosdeimos
Yeah this wasn't a Lance Armstrong case. The east German athletes were not
told anything about the shit they were given. None of them got million dollar
book contracts or sponsorship deals.

~~~
sonnyblarney
East Germany was a totalitarian system - people were coerced their entire
lives through it. Definitely athletes as they were a major tool of foreign
policy: 'Superior athletes' were to be a validation to the world of the
'superior system' they had created in E. Germany and the Soviet sphere of
influence.

When you're nabbed by the state at a young age and raised to do one thing,
wherein there are zero prospects beyond the role given to you, and the real
possibility of retribution - you do as you're told in all manner of things.
It's not just 'doping' , it's basically a submission to the system on most
levels.

'Doping' would have been one of the many things those people would have been
effectively required to do as a function of their responsibilities, aware of
it or not.

In America, you could argue children are coopted by their parents, but by the
time of adulthood, it's entirely reasonable for people to break free of that.
Even most children have the ability to rebel on some level. Tiger Woods seemed
to love Golf long after he was good. Michael Jackson obviously didn't fare so
well ...

Lance Armstrong made a choice, but any athlete in such an authoritarian system
is not making many choices.

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spraak
This part really stood outto me:

> The sciences of psychology and forensic psychiatry recognize the phenomenon
> of transgenerational trauma transmission: Traumatic experiences can be
> passed along to the children. From research conducted into other victim
> groups that suffered a similar fate, we know that the transgenerational
> transmission of trauma leads to the handing down of specific symptoms and
> can go hand in hand with significant risks – not just psychological and
> social, but also genetic.

~~~
JamesBarney
The genetic/epigenetic effects of intergenerational trauma are on super shaky
ground.

The effects they have found are basically if you break an individual through
trauma that can cause them to sometimes be a shittier parent. For instance if
you have anger issues or alcoholism from ptsd that will definitely hamper
ability to raise a child.

But there are also a lot of confounds in the literature which probably
exaggerate this effect. (basically some of the ability to recover from and
avoid trauma is genetic, and therefore passed down)

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CryoLogic
I'd like to see the compounds used, dosages used, and the actual affects on
biochemistry afterwards. I'd also like to know if the long term damage is
mostly age related since they did not have developed endocrine systems yet.
This article isn't particularly scientific.

I don't know a ton about most anabolic steroids (typically derivatives of
testosterone) - but testosterone is known to be highly beneficial in dosages
that bring a man up to around 700-900ng/dl. Aka, around the levels of a very
healthy 20-something-year-old. This is well studied.

There is a really well done study where they gave a large number of healthy
men 500mg testosterone per week for I believe 12 weeks. That put them at about
2000-3000ng/dl, or three times a normal males levels. The results showed only
one or two participants had a significant side affect and all participants
recovered fine.

Remember, anabolic androgenic steroid (AAS) just means a growth promoting
"anabolic" male sex characteristic related "androgenic" molecule with 17
carbon atoms "steroid".

Most people don't realize this, but testosterone IS an AAS. It's a
bioidentical hormone.

You probably think it's bad to take, because of bad media. But what do you
think is in birth control? Most birth control is a pill full of estrogen and
progesterone, two other bio-identical sex hormones. A large percentage of the
female population in the USA is on birth control, and they don't seem to be
dying any quicker from what a quick search shows.

~~~
JamesBarney
Taking something for 12 weeks is very different than years. Also when you look
at men on trt they have a much higher risk of cardiovascular events than
matched individuals who opted to not take trt. This is pretty well established
at this point.

Not to mention we have the epidemiological data that men don't be live as long
as women.

And they've also found similar issues with HRT for women in
menopause.(increased risk of stroke)

But 10-12 years is probably a gross exaggeration. I wouldn't be surprised if
this result is plagued with confounds( I don't think they did a survey of
everyone). And these kids experienced a ton of non-doping related trauma.

Not to mention the individual interviewed sounds more like an advocate than a
scientist.

~~~
dahdum
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought that cardiovascular risk is far from
established fact. I'm seeing the opposite findings in recent research.

[1] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/mens-
health/exp...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/mens-
health/expert-answers/testosterone-therapy-side-effects/faq-20090015)

[2]
[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2604140)

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trevyn
What were the actual doses used?

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sokoloff
“Victim” doesn’t seem like exactly the right word here.

If the athletes had no knowledge of the doping, I’d agree they were victims. I
suspect most/all of them knew.

~~~
tzar
What reasons do you have to suspect this?

~~~
sokoloff
“What are all these injections for?” seems a natural question to ask. I doubt
they thought they were being vaccinated that regularly.

~~~
dgacmu
"vitamin supplements", per the article. And some were children as young as
seven years old. You're working hard to blame the victims here.

We place a lot of trust in medical professionals. Your doctor gives you a
prescription for something - for most people, you take it on the assumption
they know what they're doing. (Yes, I realize there's likely a sub-contingent
of the HN crowd that Googles everything they take -- but there was no Google
back then, and particularly not in East Germany, where almost all of the
information you got was carefully controlled). Witness how easy it was for
Larry Nassar to perpetuate years of abuse against over 250 children, and
that's _today_ in the US.

Even if the trust was simply "hey, this will help you perform better and it's
safe", and the "it's safe" part is a lie, it's still abuse. And the things
described in the article are actually far worse than just that.

