Effect of pseudoephedrine in sport: a systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Pseudoephedrine is a stimulant that can be purchased over-the-counter to relieve symptoms of nasal and sinus congestion. Owing to its similar composition to ephedrine and other amphetamines, pseudoephedrine mirrors some of its ergogenic effects. This study investigates its possible ergogenic effect through a systematic review. Our primary aim was to determine the effects of pseudoephedrine in sport and its potential for performance enhancement. DESIGN: We searched EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsychINFO and The Cochrane Library for trials conducted from their beginning to March 2015. Any published trial that used randomised assignment to the intervention and control groups in full text and measured pseudoephedrine as an independent variable were included. RESULTS: Overall, the review showed that the ergogenic effect of pseudoephedrine is dose-dependent. None of the reviewed studies showed an ergogenic effect at the therapeutic dose of the drug (60-120 mg); however, supratherapeutic doses (≥180 mg) yielded clinically significant results. CONCLUSIONS: Owing to the limitations of the published studies in this field, we were unable to make any firm conclusions with respect to the overall effect of pseudoephedrine and its ergogenic effect. It is evident that there is a correlation between the dose administered and its ergogenic effects, but it is also evident that the side effects of using above the therapeutic dose outweigh the possible benefits of using pseudoephedrine in sport. Further research with larger sample sizes is required to determine the relationship between doses (≥180 mg) and concentrations in urine that cause an ergogenic effect.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.021 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".