Authors Toby Műndel and David A. Jones of the Human Performance Laboratory, School of
Sport and Exercise Sciences, The University of Birmingham (United Kingdom),
recruited 12 healthy non-smoking men and asked them to cycle in a laboratory
setting at a moderate pace until exhausted on two occasions. Subjects randomly applied either a 7
milligram nicotine patch or a placebo patch the evening before.
Ten subjects who
wore the nicotine patch cycled for 70 minutes – about 17% longer than the 62
minutes cycled by those with the placebo patch.
Nicotine had no effect on heart rate or respiratory parameters, and it “…did
not alter the perception of effort… associated with progressive fatigue.” The researchers noted that “…activity of
dopamine pathways has
been suggested to
be associated with improved endurance exercise performance.” In other words, nicotine’s endurance boost
stemmed from its effect on the brain.
As I mentioned in
2011, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is
considering labeling nicotine a performance-enhancing drug. However, WADA could treat nicotine as it has
caffeine, summarized this way by the agency in 2012 (here):
“Caffeine was
removed from the Prohibited List in 2004. Its use in sport is not prohibited. Many experts believe that caffeine is
ubiquitous in beverages and food and that reducing the threshold might
therefore create the risk of sanctioning athletes for social or diet consumption
of caffeine. In addition, caffeine is
metabolized at very different rates in individuals.”
Since using
nicotine is a “social” choice and the substance is metabolized at very
different rates, one can only hope that WADA applies such a
reasoned, practical analysis to it as well.
