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Do Inhalers Make You Faster?

Saturday, 18 January 2014 00:10

By Susan Lacke (triathlon.competitor.com)

Will using an asthma inhaler make you a better athlete? Some athletes believe the answer is yes — but science says no.

The asthma medications of interest in terms of performance are the bronchodilators (such as salbutamol, albuterol and formoterol), which open closed airways and relieve the symptoms of asthma, including shortness of breath and wheezing. However, some athletes obtain bronchodilators for off-label use, believing the medications will further relax the muscle linings of their healthy lungs and provide an advantage over other competitors....

Such logic is fallible, says Dr. Michael Koehle, a sports medicine researcher with the University of British Columbia. In a 2012 study performed by Koehle’s team, cyclists were given either salbutamol or a placebo inhaler before performing two 10-kilometer time trials. Though lung function did improve in the salbutamol group, it did not have any effect on time trial performance.

“Numerous studies from a variety of research groups (including ours) can show no definite advantage for these medications,” says Koehle. A 2011 review of 26 studies on asthma inhalers found that the medications did not improve “endurance, strength or sprint performance in healthy athletes.”  READ MORE