NATIONAL athletes in Malaysia are prohibited to use the natural roots booster of Long Jack (Tongkat
Ali) Products, which men believe for many years to increase libido.

Researches done on Long Jack products in the market found that some contain steroid. In its pure form, Long Jack works by increasing levels of internal testosterone naturally. Each person may react differently in the

While further research studies have been planned, funding is needed for the project.
Dato Dr Ramlan bin Abd Aziz, Director General of the Malaysia’s National Sports Institute said this in his briefing on health consequences of doping yesterday at the 2nd International Olympic committee Sports Medicine Course.

He said “the use of pharmaceuticals of artificial substances enhances the performance of the athletes or to mask any doping substances. Doping contravenes ethics of both sports and medical science. The definition of doping consist of two points of a ban of administration of substances belonging to selected classes of pharmacological agents and the use of various doping methods.

“There is no complete list of banned substances, class of banned substances and their analogues. Doping substances include stimulants, narcotics, anabolic agents, diuretics, peptide and glycoprotein hormones”.
He recalled the history of doping. “Doping is not exclusively a modern phenomenon and has been in existence even during the ancient Olympics. Native South Americans chewed cacao leaves (cocaine). In the 1960 Olympics, a road cyclist collapsed and died due to amphetamines and then in the 1986 Olympics, doping control was established.

“The first recorded drug related to death in the world of sports was in 1886, whereby an English cyclist died from an overdose of something called trimethyl, which was probably a form of ether,” he said.

Giving examples of past Malaysian athletes allegedly found out, he said “in the 1989 SEA Games, a 110m male hurdler was caught for ephedrine (a stimulant) contained in jamu, various bodybuilders-anabolic steroids; in the 1995 SEA Games, a female badminton player was caught for pseudoephedrine ( a stimulant); in the 1996 Sukma games; random test for Olympics bound athletes; recent cases were athletes in weightlifting, boxing, athletics, shooting.”

Outlining some of the reason of athletes for using drugs, he said ” pressure to excel in competition, medals, money, fame and shortcut”.

The consequences of doping can lead to serious health complication and among the health problems are cirrhosis of the liver, jaundice, aggressiveness, heart failures and loss of libido.

Some 300 course participants listened to the presentation.

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