On frogs and fatigue: stimulating reading at the end of Le Tour

Great work by Sastre to win overall, and for Steegmans to take it into Paris. Now onto the more stimulating side of the sport - can't get a natural high? Try this: Kazakh rider Dmitriy Fofonov was fired from his team and detained by French police for questioning after it was announced that he tested positive for a banned stimulant, heptaminol. The French Anti-doping Agency president Pierre Bordry said that the now former Crédit Agricole rider had tested positive for "very heavy dose" of the drug.

Being Kazakh has nothing to do with it and we should dismiss that as a coincidence. But why heptaminol? Heptaminol chlorhydrate is a common cardiac stimulant and vasodilator, widely used for the treatment of orthostatic hypotension - or low blood pressure if you like. A 'usual' dose may be 500-1500 mg or so, orally. Whilst it is structurally similar to methamphetamine, it's a different thing. So why take it? Presumably it will give you a lift and keep you going, and may help 'open the lungs' a little. This is certainly an interesting result, if you are a frog: Heptaminol stopped or delayed the progressive decline in tension which characterizes the phenomenon of fatigue in frog isolated twitch muscle fibre. Presumably Fofonov, if actually guilty as charged, acts like a frog in this case.