Even if Ray Lewis did use deer antler spray his body would have never absorbed the banned substance its manufacturer says gives the product its potency, a Johns Hopkins professor said.
Sports Illustrated ran an article online Tuesday that connected theRavens linebacker to S.W.A.T.S. — Sports with Alternatives toSteroids — a company that has marketed alternative health supplements and products to athletes (Yahoo had the story two years ago). The story quotes S.W.A.T.S. co-founder Christopher Key telling a group of college football players that the company’s deer velvet spray contains IGF-1, a hormone that has been banned by most major sports organizations including the NFL.
Dr. Roberto Salvatori, who runs a lab studying growth hormone deficiency and has been on the Hopkins faculty since 1998, said there is no scientifically accepted way to deliver IGF-1 orally.
“If there were, a lot of people would be happy that they don’t need to get shots anymore,” he said. “It’s just simply not possible for it to come from a spray.”
IGF-1, short for insulin-like growth factor, is used to treat a rare form of dwarfism known as Laron syndrome and in other cases where children fail to produce or process growth hormone.
It occurs naturally in the body and is actually produced as a result of the increased presence of human growth hormone, one of the performance enhancers allegedly used by cyclist Lance Armstrong. from the SUN
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