Abstract

Alcohol intake can influence the urinary testosterone/epitestosterone ratio and may consequently lead to misinterpretation of the athlete’s urinary steroid profile. The aim of this study was to develop a fast and reliable LC-MS/MS method to determine ethylglucuronide and ethylsulfate as long-term alcohol metabolites to indicate alcohol related elevation of the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio. Two studies with selected urine samples (n1=528, n2=120) from different classes of sports indicated that alcohol consumption is fairly common in sports. Within the investigated urine specimens, out of competition samples and samples from teamsports show elevated EtG and EtS values most frequently (n1 positive findings: total = 8.1%, out of competition = 4.7%, team sports = 4.0%; n2 positive findings: total = 14.2%, out of competition = 9.2%, team sports = 6.7%). An excretion study was performed to estimate the duration and magnitude of the alcohol-related testosterone/epitestosterone increase. For all post-administration samples relevant urinary amounts of ethylglucuronide and ethylsulfate were detectable up to 40 hours after alcohol intake. Furthermore a good correlation between ethylglucuronide-, ethylsulfate-concentrations and T/E ratio could be demonstrated, so that detection of these long-term alcohol markers is a suitable method to indicate alcohol related changes in steroid profile. Verf.-Referat