NSAC confirms Jon Jones positive for estrogen blockers
NSAC confirms Jon Jones positive for estrogen blockers
Earlier today the Nevada State Athletic Commission confirmed the substances for which Jon Jones tested positive causing removal from his headlining UFC 200 championship bout with Daniel Cormier.
Jones tested positive for hydroxy-clomiphene, “an anti-estrogenic agent” and “letrozole metabolite,” an “aromatase inhibitor,” NSAC attorney Caroline Bateman said during a hearing in Las Vegas.
Estrogen blockers can potentially act in tandem with performance-enhancers by helping to mitigate their side effects, and are also thought to restart natural testosterone production.
A temporary suspension placed on Jones’ Nevada fight license was subsequently extended by a unanimous vote, while a formal hearing is expected for September or October.
USADA tested Jones out-of-competition on June 16 ahead of his fight with Cormier. On July 6, three days prior to UFC 200, the “A” sample of his test came back positive for a banned substance. Jones was removed from the card and notified of a potential anti-doping violation by USADA, who also forwarded the findings to the NSAC.
Jones tearfully denied knowingly using any banned substances, with his management pointing to tainted supplement use as the potential cause of the positive test.
The result was confirmed when the “B” sample of Jones’ urine specimen was tested.
More on Estrogen blockers as per an article from Bloody Elbow:
“Testosterone is the primary steroid hormone, and increasing testosterone levels would increase muscle mass and athletic performance.
A “cycle” in this instance refers to a cycle of steroids, prohormones or other exogenous anabolic agent. When you increase the amount of testosterone in your body, it undergoes a process called aromatization, which converts a portion of it into the female sex hormone estriadol, which is the main active estrogen, and is often referred to simply as estrogen as a result.
While the body requires a certain amount of estrogen to function effectively, too much estrogen in a male will have undesirable side effects. The primary undesirable side effects would be increased subcutaneous fat gain, and potential gynecomastia, or breast enlargement.
As a result, most cycles of steroids or similar PEDs are accompanied by and followed with compounds designed to reduce estrogen levels and/or reduce how they affect breast tissue and the HPTA axis. There are various means of doing so, with the most common being to take a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) like breast cancer drug Tamoxifen or fertility drug Clomid, or an aromatase inhibiting compound. SERMs and aromatase inhibitors are banned in and out of competition by USADA, as are other anti-estrogenic substances.
Selective estrogen receptor modulators, aromatase inhibitors, and other anti-estrogenic substances ensure estrogen levels stay low and/or help to prevent the aromatization of testosterone into estrogen both while “on cycle” and after a cycle, when the body’s hormone levels are out of balance. SERMs also help to minimize the decrease in luteinizing hormone production which can be caused by high levels of estrogen. Luteinizing hormone is vital in the production of testosterone.
There is a belief among some PED users that lowering estrogen levels also triggers the body to naturally increase testosterone production. If true, this would be useful, as after a cycle of steroids the body’s natural testosterone production is diminished and does not recover immediately.”
