Mark Cuban Says HGH Should Be Used To Speed Up Injury Recovery

[Bouncer]

Human growth hormone is grouped with steroids as a performance-enhancing drug and thus is banned for use by athletes. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is out to change that.

Cuban told ESPN's Rachel Nichols on Friday that a University of Michigan study he funded showed HGH can help athletes recover from injuries. The study concluded only that HGH helped to improve strength in quadriceps muscles and helped to prevent atrophying of muscles around the knee for athletes who underwent ACL surgery.

Cuban told Nichols a flawed policy by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) helped lead him to fund the study.

"WADA . . . banned it and there really was no research or real complete logic for doing it," he said. "So a couple years ago I said, 'Look, if there's no data there to dismiss HGH, well, let's find out if it can help for injury recovery, because it has been discussed as having that ability.'"

After seeing the study data, Cuban wants professional leagues and Olympic organzations to help fund additional research.

The NBA conducts random blood tests for HGH under its collective bargaining agreement with the players association. Suspensions for positive tests are 25 games for a first offense, 55 games for a second offense and expulsion from the league for a third offense.

Cuban figures athletes would support dropping HGH bans if they can be convinced the drugs will provide benefits.

"I think the players also would all be for it as long as you can prove it's safe. If you can get them back on the court or on the field and have them up to full speed sooner, why wouldn't you do it?" he told Nichols.

Cuban didn't say whether he'd profit personally from a change in policy, or whether he uses HGH himself.

The Study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...rnalCode=ajsb&

[Mr I]

Exactly how I’m using it now, stop excess fat and preserve some muscle

[Scrumhalf]

Is the HGH ban universal, or can it be used under doctor supervision to aid in recovery from injury? I don't know what the WADA rules are.

[Bouncer]

Is the HGH ban universal, or can it be used under doctor supervision to aid in recovery from injury? I don't know what the WADA rules are.

i think if you fail test it's a ban no matter what.

[Scrumhalf]

i think if you fail test it's a ban no matter what.

I know, but you can also get prior permission from WADA, basically a medical or therapeutic exemption for certain medications that also have an androgenic or respiratory benefit. I didn't know if you could do the same thing with HGH. To me, that makes sense.

[Bouncer]

I know, but you can also get prior permission from WADA, basically a medical or therapeutic exemption for certain medications that also have an androgenic or respiratory benefit. I didn't know if you could do the same thing with HGH. To me, that makes sense.

i'd assume they probably have some sort of standard where you can use GH if you have some kind of deficiency but if using it means your IGF levels rise higher then the allowed range thus giving someone a competitive advantage they'd be banned from competing even with permission and using it for a legit reason.