Meldonium widely used by athletes, scientists reveal

The heart medication meldonium, taken by Maria Sharapova, is the sports drug of the moment.

The heart medication meldonium is the sports drug of the moment.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova is the most prominent of seven ­leading international athletes to test positive to the drug in the two months since it was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency on the grounds that athletes were using it to enhance performance.

And it seems there are more to come, with the pattern of use by elite athletes already crossing ­borders and sports.

Among those caught in the WADA sweep are 2013 world 1500m champion Abeba Aregawi, an Ethiopian-born Swede, Tour de France cyclist and former Russian road race champion Eduard Vorganov, Russian Olympic ice ­dancer Ekaterina Bobrova and Ukrainian biathletes Olga Abramova and Artem Tyschcenko.

Of nine Ethiopian athletes currently under investigation for doping, last year’s Tokyo marathon winner Endeshaw Negesse is the first to have been reported as having failed a test for meldonium.

GRAPHIC: The Meldonium file

Foul play

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Also known by the trade name Mildronate, the drug was developed in Latvia for the treatment of ischaemia (inadequate blood flow to parts of the body, especially the heart and other ­organs).

It is widely used to treat angina and heart failure in eastern Europe but has yet to be approved for use in the US, where Sharapova lives, and Australia. Latvian pharmaceutical company Grindeks, which produces the drug, boasts on its website that it will also improve “work capacity of healthy people at physical and mental overloads and during rehabilitation period’’.

WADA became concerned by anecdotal reports that it was being used as a performance-enhancing drug and put it on its monitoring list last year while it examined ­evidence of its use and effects. ­Re­search indicated it could be used as a metabolic enhancer to increase endurance and aerobic capacity, aid recovery and reduce stress.

By September last year WADA was convinced that elite athletes were misusing the drug and announced that it would be added to the banned list on January 1.

Two studies conducted last year showed widespread use of the drug among athletes. Scientists tested 8320 random urine samples of professional athletes and found that 182 had meldonium present (2.2 per cent).

“That was high enough for WADA to decide it wasn’t being used by athletes for the reason it was therapeutically intended,’’ anti-doping expert Richard Ings said.

An even more alarming Russian study, cited by the German broadcaster ARD, which uncovered the current Russian doping scandal, found that of 4316 Russian samples taken last year, 724 contained traces of meldonium (17 per cent).

The Russian anti-doping ­agency RUSADA (currently suspended because of accusations of corruption) advised Russian athletes to stop taking meldonium in October last year.

Sharapova said she had been taking the drug as prescribed by a family doctor for 10 years for a range of health issues, including a magnesium deficiency, irregular EKG results, and a family history of diabetes, and she had not checked the changes to the banned list when they were emailed to her in December.

But Ings said that was a poor excuse. “Elite professional athletes have a duty to act professionally and it’s unprofessional for an athlete who earns $30 million a year to fail to check her medications against the banned list each year,’’ he said.