Baseball Musings: Clemens's Drugs

January 04, 2008

Clemens's Drugs

The New York Times asked a doctor about B-12 and lidocaine injections.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Dr. Jerome Groopman, a hematologist and professor at Harvard Medical School, described lidocaine as a common local anesthetic whose injectable form would probably require a prescription. Groopman said that vitamin B12, which does not require a prescription, is administered to patients with a serious deficiency of the vitamin, usually the elderly, and that its value as an energy enhancer was "an urban legend."
"For someone like Roger Clemens, who certainly looks robust, the likelihood that he would be deficient in vitamin B12 is a stretch," Groopman said, noting that he had not seen Clemens's medical records. "It would have no physiological effect. It would only have a placebo effect."

Baseball is clearly not doing enough to fight the abuse of placebos.

Update: J.C. Bradbury weighs in with more on B-12.

I majored in biochemistry in college, and a course I enjoyed was one called Cofactors. Cofactors are chemicals that help catalyze reactions. Like catalysts, cofactors are unchanged by the chemical reaction; they just help it move along faster. Most vitamins are cofactors or cofactor precursors. So vitamins, if you will, have a shelf life in the body. A molecule of glucose undergoes a reaction that destroys the glucose and creates energy. But a molecule of B-12 might help catalyze many reactions before it breaks down chemically and needs to be replaced. It's the main reason I've always been a bit skeptical about claims that large doses of vitamins are good for you. The amount you get from healthy diet should be enough. Increasing the amount of B-12 doesn't increase the amount of the primary catalyst, so the extra B-12 should just float around with not much to do.

Posted by David Pinto at 08:52 AM | Cheating | TrackBack (0)

Comments

The last time I said B-12, I won a bingo contest.
And perhaps he got the licocaine (or marcaine) from Curt Schilling?

As a former player, I must add that while in the minor leagues, our trainer had me use indocin and butazolidin for shoulder problems. Then they added DMSO to the mix to help. DMSO was never authorized for human use for this treatment.

How many other players were "ordered" to use products by management to get them out on the field?

Posted by: rmt at January 4, 2008 10:12 AM

Jeez, who was that East Coast socialite, convicted of killing his wife, then got Alan Dershowitz to get his conviction overturned (Mass., IIRC). It was turned into a movie.

I don't know if all the facts in the movie were real facts, but apparently there was an underground scene in using B-12 injections. So at least some people thought that it's an energy boost.

Posted by: rbj at January 4, 2008 10:48 AM

That was Jeremy Irons.

I mean, Claus von Bülow.

Posted by: RIYank at January 4, 2008 11:13 AM

for the lidocaine, provide the prescription and that will answer this question.

as for thr B-12, most nutritionists prefer pill format to injection.

roger has to provide doctor's names and scrips to have any hope of getting through this.

Posted by: rmt at January 4, 2008 12:05 PM

Thanks, RIYank.

Posted by: rbj at January 4, 2008 01:02 PM

Rock stars would usually take a shot of B-12 before a live show... they thought it would help clear their system and give them a boost.

I'm not too certain how effective these shots would be... If you pop 100 vitamin C tablets, you are going to 'pass' what your body doesn't need. I doubt these injections provide more than a multivit.

Posted by: Andrew at January 4, 2008 01:22 PM

Anyone remember the Palmeiro thing? I swear he said he had gotten some tainted B12 from Tejada.

I also remember reading somewhere else (this might have been from Canseco, wish I could remember) that players referred to steroids as "B12" (like speaking in code names over a walkie-talkie). If that's the case, then Roger's defense is sort of like Barry's "I thought it was flaxseed oil". Except that everyone was taking B12... and Roger can just claim he didn't know what it REALLY was. Conspiracy theory at best unless I can find the actual citation of people saying B12 = codename for steroids. But as of right now, that's my understanding of it.

Posted by: Mike at January 4, 2008 01:55 PM

AHA! Another Mike, on Sabernomics, mentioned that Canseco said this on Boston radio (the whole "B12" = steroids thing).

Posted by: Mike at January 4, 2008 01:58 PM