Viagra for Sports Other Than Sex?

The New York Daily News reported the other day that off-label Viagra use has become “bigger than creatine” among athletes and bodybuilders looking for an extra power boost—one that’s not banned from competitions, at least so far, as steroids are. So I called up Health.com’s erectile dysfunction (ED) expert, urologist Ridwan Shabsigh, MD, to get his take.

Among the three nonsexual benefits that jocks are allegedly enjoying from the small blue pill, only one seemed at all feasible to Dr. Shabsigh: helping build endurance if you happen to be competing way above sea level (where having less oxygen to breathe makes the heart work harder). “Sporadic prior reports suggested endurance improvement in high altitudes, and also by pilots,” Dr. Shabsigh told me.

He doubts that Viagra, Cialis, and their herbal mimics can speed oxygen, nutrients, and performance-enhancing drugs more quickly to your muscles or that they reverse the erection-killing power of steroids—the other two scenarios sketched out by the Daily News. Those claims are “unfounded,” according to Dr. Shabsigh, who attributes any superior workouts to “the placebo effect.”

It wouldn’t be the first time an athlete talked himself or herself into a higher level of performance, but the folks who make the rules in professional (and Olympic) sports are taking Viagra’s daytime popularity pretty seriously. The Daily News says sports officials around the world are looking into whether it should count as an enhancer and join the list of forbidden substances. And the University of Miami is experimenting with its effects on cycling—a sport that has been dogged by doping allegations.

ED drugs have already arrived as a controversial substance in the world of horse racing, by the way. The Daily News reports that they’re believed to improve the cardiovascular performance of horses (although that’s not what those emails are referring to when they promise Viagra will make a stallion out of you). Some states and countries ban the drug, and others like it, outright with fines or disqualifications as punishment.

(PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO)