Medical arguments for and against the liberalization of doping / Argumentos médicos a favor y en contra de la liberalización del dopaje

The use of doping has been banned for almost a century due to the risk involved to the athlete's health. Since then, the criterion of prohibiting substances has been reinforced to improve performance, becoming a rarely controversial issue nowadays. However, opinions defending the liberalization of doping has been sometimes given based on various arguments. One of the most common is the impossibility of completely eradicating doping and that this can be safe, from the point of view of health, if it is done by qualified doctors. This paper presents the arguments against the liberalization of doping from a medical point of view, contemplating various aspects. Those related to the use of substances such as: lack of clear criteria for inclusion in the list of prohibited substances and the unclear margin between the use of medication for treatment and for doping. Arguments related to health protection such as: the risk of sport for the athlete, the healthy sport, doping substances have few health risks, the use of medications, allow genetic doping because it is inevitable, risks of self-medication or use of medication without a prescription. Arguments related to sports performance such as: Doping products do not improve performance, doping is comparable to other performance improvement techniques, match genetic differences among athletes. And other arguments such as: prohibition favours doping, the control of doping increases the risks of doping itself, the high cost of anti-doping fight or the few anti-doping resources. The proposal for liberalization of doping under medical control is analyzed and discussed as well as the effects of liberalization on children and adolescents. At the end the medical ethical aspects related to doping are presented to conclude with the opposition of the medical profession against doping and its liberalization

El dopaje está prohibido desde hace casi un siglo debido al riesgo que implica para la salud del deportista. Desde entonces, el criterio de prohibición de sustancias se ha reforzado para mejorar el rendimiento, convirtiéndose en un tema poco controvertido en la actualidad. Sin embargo, a veces se han emitido opiniones en defensa de la liberalización del dopaje basadas en diversos argumentos. Uno de los más habituales es la imposibilidad de erradicar por completo el dopaje y que éste puede ser seguro, desde el punto de vista de la salud, si lo practica médicos titulados. Este artículo presenta los argumentos en contra de la liberalización del dopaje desde el punto de vista médico, contemplando diversos aspectos. Los relacionados con el uso de sustancias tales como: falta de criterios claros para su inclusión en la lista de sustancias prohibidas y el margen poco claro entre el uso de medicamentos para tratamiento y dopaje. Argumentos relacionados con la protección de la salud como: el riesgo del deporte para el deportista, el deporte sano, las sustancias dopantes tienen pocos riesgos para la salud, el uso de medicamentos, permitir el dopaje genético porque es inevitable, los riesgos de automedicación o uso de medicación sin prescripción. Argumentos relacionados con el rendimiento deportivo tales como: los productos antidopaje no mejoran el rendimiento, el dopaje es comparable a otras técnicas de mejora del rendimiento, diferencias genéticas entre los deportistas. Y otros argumentos como: la prohibición favorece el dopaje, el control del dopaje aumenta los riesgos del dopaje, el alto coste de la lucha antidopaje o los escasos recursos antidopaje. Se analiza y discute la propuesta de liberalización del dopaje bajo control médico y los efectos de la liberalización en niños y adolescentes. Al final se presentan los aspectos éticos médicos relacionados con el dopaje para concluir con la oposición de la profesión médica al dopaje y su liberalización

Extracellular vesicle-miRNAs as liquid biopsy biomarkers for disease identification and prognosis in metastatic colorectal cancer patients.

Disseminated disease is present in ≈50% of colorectal cancer patients upon diagnosis, being responsible for most of cancer deaths. Addition of biological drugs, as Bevacizumab, to chemotherapy, has increased progression free survival and overall survival of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients. However, these benefits have been only reported in a small proportion of patients. To date, there are not biomarkers that could explain the heterogeneity of this disease and would help in treatment selection. Recent findings demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in cancer and they can be encapsulated with high stability into extracellular vesicles (EVs) that are released in biological fluids. EVs can act as cell-to-cell communicators, transferring genetic information, such as miRNAs. In this context, we aimed to investigate serum EV associated miRNAs (EV-miRNAs) as novel non-invasive biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of Bevacizumab-treated mCRC patients. We observed that baseline miRNA-21 and 92a outperformed carcinoembryonic antigen levels in the diagnosis of our 44 mCRC patients, compared to 17 healthy volunteers. In addition, patients who died presented higher levels of miRNA-92a and 222 at 24 weeks. However, in the multivariate Cox analysis, higher levels of miRNA-222 at 24 weeks were associated with lower overall survival. Altogether, these data indicate that EV-miRNAs have a strong potential as liquid biopsy biomarkers for the identification and prognosis of mCRC.

Evaluation of the police operational tactical procedures for reducing officer injuries resulting from physical interventions in problematic arrests. The case of the Municipal Police of Cádiz (Spain).

OBJECTIVES: This paper describes some operational tactical procedures (OTP) and discusses the results of a 14-year-long study, spanning the period 2003-2016, conducted by the Municipal Police of Cádiz, Spain, which comprised 3 time periods: 2003-2006, when the officers were trained in traditional policing procedures; 2007-2013, when the officers were taught an innovative set of OTP in the form of a basic set of self-defense and arrest mechanisms, different from the traditional policing procedures that rely on martial arts and combat sports; and finally 2014-2016, when the OTP training was discontinued. The aim of this study was to improve policing and reduce officer injuries resulting from interventions in controversial or violent situations, such as problematic arrests. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study involved 162 police officers and commanders of the Municipal Police of Cádiz, who were in street duty for their first time. There were 8 females and 154 males aged 24-55 years. Three OTP stages are shown as examples. RESULTS: Based on the analysis of "training hours" and "physical interventions in problematic arrests," the results were: 1) the number of sick leaves in the police was identical according to the number of arrests, and 2) data on sick leaves show remarkable differences among the 3 periods under analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The OTP-based training substantially reduced officer sick leaves. The overall reduction in sick leaves in the period 2007-2013 was observed that cannot be ascribed to a decrease in criminal acts, and hence in police physical interventions. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2020;33(1):35-43.

Clinical relevance associated to the analysis of circulating tumour cells in patients with solid tumours.

The distant growth of tumour cells escaping from primary tumours, a process termed metastasis, represents the leading cause of death among patients affected by malignant neoplasias from breast and colon. During the metastasis process, cancer cells liberated from primary tumour tissue, also termed circulating tumour cells (CTCs), travel through the circulatory and/or lymphatic systems to reach distant organs. The early detection and the genotypic and phenotypic characterisation of such CTCs could represent a powerful diagnostic tool of the disease, and could also be considered an important predictive and prognostic marker of disease progression and treatment response. In this article we discuss the potential relevance in the clinic of monitoring CTCs from patients suffering from solid epithelial tumours, with emphasis on the impact of such analyses as a predictive marker for treatment response.