Gene Doping by H. Lee Sweeney

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=gene-doping&print=true

Summary:
Gene doping is popular among athletes, especially those participating in the Olympic games. Many dabble in this activity just to have one step up on opponents, who may or may not be using this method themselves. Sports authorities are afraid that new less detectable forms of doping will become readily available and less preventable. There will be different treatments to regenerate, increase strength, and protect from degradation of muscles emerging. This will cause high amounts of natural muscle-building chemicals that can last for years. This seems ideal for the elderly and also for the athletes because nothing from these type of drugs enter the bloodstream so nothing can be detected.
When any type of mammal ages the skeletal muscles begin to weaken and lose the sense of balance they once had. The most common and severe form of MD, or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is due to the absence of the protein dystrophin. It protects the muscle fibers from injury from everyday movement. Another case of severe muscle loss is found in astronauts in microgravity and by patients that have some disability that shuts down the muscle repair system.
Scientists are working on finding a way put together details of how the muscle is actually assembled and broken down, so that maybe the loss of muscle strength can be prevented for the cases previously mentioned. They tried buffering dystrophin but everyday movement still injured the muscle fibers. There is also talk of a growth factor similar to insulin called IGF-I, which when injected can last the life of the cell.
This drug was tested on lab rats by injecting a tiny virus called adeno-associated virus (AAV) along with the IGF-I. This "formula" was injected into the muscle of one leg in each lab rat then they were put through an eight week training program. After the time slot the injected muscles had twice the amount of strength as the muscles that weren't injected. There are some safety concerns and questions about whether or not to administer to humans.
Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are working on developing different myostatin inhibitors and if myostatin is blocked then result could be muscle hypertrophy. This will help with the muscular dystrophy patients. This also seems like heaven for the athlete or person looking for quick muscle growth. Again this drug would only be found in the actual muscle not the bloodstream or urine. It seems that there is no real problem with increasing muscle mass by 20 to 40 percent in young people but rather with the elderly that are experiencing osteoporosis.
Others on the list for enhancement is the amount of oxygen carried to the muscles by using the protein Erythroprotein. Yet there seems to be time before athletes can get their hands on such drugs, but when and if they do it will definitely change our sports and society.

Response:
My concern with the thoughts of this gene doping is the side affects and repercussions. There isn't very much mentioned about the down side of these injections. I think that it is good to try to prevent the skeletal muscles from weakening in the elderly and in the disabled but there will never be a complete ceasing of muscle weakening because everyone will age. Its a better idea for the disabled yet it could potentially be dangerous, especially not knowing what else it will do to the body. Does it affect the nerves in the muscles? After it wears off are your muscles weaker than before?