That’s the question behind a study recently conducted at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia. And the evidence is overwhelming that people who think they are taking performance-enhancing drugs think their performance is actually enhanced as a result.

The research team, led by Jennifer Hansen, RN, studied the athletic performance of 64 young, healthy, adults who enjoy recreational sports. Because of doping laws, professional athletes could not partake of the study.

Neither the study participants nor the research team knew which individuals were taking a growth hormone and which were taking a placebo instead. Before the eight-week study began, each athlete was tested for performance levels of endurance, power, sprint capacity, and strength. At the end of the study, performance was measured again, for comparison.

Each study participant was asked at the end of the study to guess if he or she had taken the growth hormone or the placebo. The men were more likely to say they’d received the steroid than the women were.

As for performance, the study participants, male and female, who felt they’d received the steroid were most likely to report improved performance, a subgroup dubbed “incorrect guessers.” Performance tests showed slight improvement, if any, for most areas of performance measured for the study. The most significant improvement was in jump height, a measure of power.

The research team concludes that the effect of the growth hormone was no more significant than the effect of taking the placebo and thinking it was the growth hormone, or an example of mind over matter. A report of the study is scheduled for presentation at the 90th annual meeting in San Francisco of The Endocrine Society.

The growth hormone used in the study was provided by Novo Nordisk. The World Anti-Doping Agency and the Anti-Doping Research Program of Australia funded the study.

Source: The Endocrine Society