Widespread Use of Meldonium Among Athletes: A Research Study

A research conducted by the Medical XPress (2016, March 9), highlights the fact that the use of
meldonium among athletes is increasingly huge. The Baku 2015 European Games that took place in
Azerbaijan, between 12th and 28th June 2015, the use of meldoniumhit the headlines. A report by Stuart et
al. (2016) confirms that indeed there was a huge consumption of meldonium by dozens of the 5632
competing athletes. Investigations on the use of meldonium have consequently prompted the World Anti-
Doping Agency (WADA) Monitoring Program, to enlist the drug under surveillance for substances
associated with doping.
Notwithstanding medical regimes allowing the use of meldonium in a number of countries in
Eastern Europe, WADA Monitoring Program feels the need to raise awareness for future decisions on the
use of meldonium prescribed to athletes. The anecdotal reports obtained from the London 2012 Olympic
and Paralympic Games (Stuart et al. 2016) supports this claim. However, it remains unclear as to whether
a legitimate use of meldonium by majority of athletes in the Baku 2015 European Games, is a reason to
discredit the use of meldonium. A possible solution to this question can be given by sources of data and
analysis carried out.
The European Olympic Committees (EOC) Medical and Anti-Doping Commission was mandated
to analyze the data samples, that included a declaration by athletes and their medical teams, and a urine or
blood sample. A procedural testing of these samples was done in WADA’s distinct laboratories and the
results were to form part of the Monitoring Program surveillance. The results were obtained from 864
tests performed either on urine that had 762 tests and 102 samples tested for blood. However, despite 80%
(525) of the 662 athletes making a self-reported declaration for medication among the tested athletes, only
3.5% (23) of the 662 athletes declared having administered meldonium at the period of the Games.
Nevertheless, the laboratory tests confirmed that it was not the 23 athletes alone that confirmed to have
used meldonium but a total of 63 out of the 662 athletes tested.
Furthermore, this under reporting of the presence of meldonium among athletes continues to raise
questions most especially when data was collected on the medicines imported by the NOC teams. The