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A doctor’s skeptical opinion of TRT usage in fighting
By Zach Arnold | July 1, 2011
Dr. Nickolas Tomasic is a urologist at Marina Del Ray hospital.
KENNY RICE: “Let’s get right to the expert here. Why would a guy who’s in his 30s, who is in his athletic prime, and who has two children with one on the way, have a problem with any kind of testosterone, in your expert opinion (and I know you don’t treat him or any other fighter)?”
DR. NICKOLAS TOMASIC: “In my opinion, the incidence of a low testosterone level, hypogonadism condition in a world-class athlete in his early 30s would be quite low. There could be other factors involved, previous exposure to radiation, chemotherapy, testicular injuries, those things would be quite, quite rare, but also possible previous anabolic steroid use could be a factor as well.”
BAS RUTTEN: “That’s what I was going at, the nandrolone he was using five years ago when he got caught for it. Does that have something to do with it, you think?”
DR. NICKOLAS TOMASIC: “Well, there’s no question that repeated, excessive use of anabolic steroids can lead to testicular atrophy and, I can’t say in his case at all, but that is a factor that could be involved.”
KENNY RICE: “Doctor, as far as it would seem with when we talk about steroids, when we talk about any kind of testosterone that you would be taking out there to increase your level, as far as giving an edge to an athlete which is always the presumption, is that true?”
DR. NICKOLAS TOMASIC: “Yes, I do believe that excessive testosterone levels could give a world-class athlete a competitive edge. Muscle-building, conditioning, even the conditioning process prior to a fight, that could be a real competitive edge.”
KENNY RICE: “Do you have a lot of young guys come in that need testosterone to boost it, that are in their 30s?”
DR. NICKOLAS TOMASIC: “It’s rather, rather uncommon.”
After this comment, Matt Mitrione played the role of Meathead to perfection by asking whether or not getting repeated hits to the balls during training would cause low testosterone.
DR. NICKOLAS TOMASIC: “I’d say it would take a rather severe testicular injury, actually rupturing the testicle, something more dramatic than just common bruising that might occur.”
KENNY RICE: “Mark, let me ask you, and again, you know, we don’t pick on (Nate) Marquardt in general, I mean you’ve got Chael Sonnen out there that’s had the same problems, we’ve had Josh Barnett for years, I mean not always identical, we’ve had the legend Royce Gracie that was caught using a substance you’re not supposed to use. As far as what you’ve seen, as a man who promotes & runs an organization as successfully as the MFC, I know there’s been a few times you’ve had to deal with guys like that, is this becoming more prevalent now, OK, we’re not on steroids but our testosterone level’s low or we’re building it up.”
MARK PAVELICH: “Why do we consistently be scared to talk about this out loud? Olympics talk about it out loud, everybody else talks about it out loud, and now we’re sitting here wondering why some guy at 30 years old, listen I’m not a doctor, the doctor’s here, but I would imagine and my guess would be earlier steroid use, that would be my assessment on it. To fluctuate those levels and to do all these kind of weird things that’s happening in our sport now. Listen, either allow it or don’t allow it, I’m not here to judge either way, but it seems like we’re trying to like always kind of be scared to talk about (drug usage), and it’s prevalent in our sport.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It could be that secondary hypogonadism is more likely than primary hypogonadism. Mitrione was partially on to something.
[…] KRUCK: “We had a urologist on Inside MMA, Dr. Nickolas Tomasic, and he had mentioned that comment that low testosterone is often caused by prior steroid use. So, […]
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