Baseball Warns Players About Deer Antler Spray

[michaelarmenta]

BOSTON – Curtis Granderson tapped on his cellphone in the Yankees’ clubhouse Saturday after a 10-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox. He had received two text messages from old friends, asking if he knew that deer-antler spray was supposedly a form of human growth hormone.

Deer-antler spray?

Granderson laughed as he recounted the messages, and said he told his friends that he actually had some deer antlers, without knowing their powerful effects. It was not the first Granderson had heard of it, but he said, as the Yankees’ union representative, he had not heard anything about an official warning from Major League Baseball about the use of the spray.

A baseball official confirmed a report on Sports Illustrated’s Web site that said the league had told players in the majors and the minors that deer-antler spray had been added to its list of nutritional supplements that could be contaminated.

According to the report, the velvet from young deer antlers contains an “insulin-like growth factor, IGF-1, which mediates the level of human growth hormone in the body.” The report said IGF-1 was banned by associations like baseball and the World Anti-Doping Agency because it builds muscle and cuts fat.

The antlers are taken from young deer and ground into a spray that is administered under the tongue. Like human growth hormone, IGF-1 cannot be detected in urine tests, which baseball uses to administer its drug testing.

A Yahoo! Sports article in January quoted Roy Williams, a Cincinnati Bengals safety, as saying he uses the spray two or three times a day. “My body felt good after using it,” Williams said. “I did feel a difference.”

[SwolenONE]

lmao thats hilarious, that stuff did not stay popular for long.