Willpower

Those who believe they are using growth hormone will score higher in long jumps. This is evidence for the capacity of human trust.

Men who are injected with drugs often believe that they are more realistic growth hormones than women. Australian researchers noted that men who received counterfeit injections actually performed better than their previous test.

Ken Ho, an endocrinologist at the Garvan Medical Research Institute and the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and his colleagues randomly selected 64 amateurs to inject for 8 weeks. Half of these are injected with growth hormone, the rest are sedative.

At the end of the project, 81% of men believed that they were given real injections while only 31% of women believed it. In addition, those who had a higher achievement in the high jump test than before receiving the fake injection.

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When asked to fill out the questionnaire, men were given a sedative but believed it was a true growth hormone that also acknowledged their achievement improved. Ken Ho presented his results on June 17 at a meeting of the Endocrine Community in San Francisco.

Ken Ho said 'The obvious thing in our work is that the spirit has amazing abilities. I just wondered if the advances in sports today are more due to the willpower than the substances crammed into athletes. '

According to him, it also tells many things about male minds. 'When we started recruiting volunteers for this study, the position for men was very fast. It is difficult to fill female positions. I think women are very protective of their bodies. '

The team is evaluating participants who are given a true growth hormone to see if there is any effect on the body.

Growth hormone is used legally for a number of groups: the elderly, HIV-infected patients and those who lack natural growth hormones. But no official work has shown that it helps young athletes achieve success, according to Richard Auchus, a skeptic biochemist at the Southwest Texas Medical Center.

On the other hand, sedatives have been shown to work in many studies.

The effect of tranquilizers is real for this and other works. But growth hormones are less likely to have a widespread impact on athletic performance than sedatives.

Auchus adds: Some bodybuilders and other strength-oriented athletes can use growth hormone doses that are many times more than the safe dose in this project. It is unclear if the likelihood of achievement is higher but it certainly increases the risk of side effects.