Research Library

Smack Epidemic: How Painkillers Are Turning Young Athletes into Heroin Addicts

It is, by any measure, an epidemic. Heroin is not new or chic, but its use and abuse are spiking. According to data from the CDC and the National Center for Health Statistics, heroin-overdose deaths rose gradually from 2000 to ’10 but then almost tripled in the following three years to 2.7 deaths per 100,000 […]

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NFL and Pain: League Zeros in on One Pain Medication

Toradol, the players’ drug of choice, carries high risks but may soon be banned. During a 13-season NFL career, defensive tackle Warren Sapp cherished those days he was close to pain-free, those games he could race onto the field with nothing but adrenaline pumping through his veins. “I was in the trenches, boss, with contact […]

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Football’s Hidden Pains

This weekend offered two of the best football games of the year, both of which I watched, though turning on the television for Sunday’s games was slightly harder after reading Dan Le Batard’s account of Jason Taylor’s fifteen painful years in the N.F.L., in the Miami Herald. Among the grotesqueries: Needles in the bottom of […]

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For Young Athletes, Good Reasons to Break the Fast-Food Habit

When I ran high school cross-country 14 years ago, the bus that took us to meets always stopped at a Wendy’s or McDonald’s after the event. Most of the team would order some variation of burgers, fries and a big soda. It was fast, easy and satisfying. Things haven’t changed much for young athletes, according […]

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Doctors Turn on No 10 Over Failure to Curb Obesity Surge

Major food and drinks firms fuel crisis with irresponsible marketing, claim doctors, who call for ban on fast-food sponsorship deals. The body that represents every doctor in the country has launched an unprecedented attack on the coalition government’s failed strategy to tackle an obesity epidemic in the UK.

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Concern Raised Over Pain killer Use in Sports

When Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey partly tore the plantar fascia in his right foot last May, he turned to a treatment that in recent years has become a go-to elixir for professional baseball and football players: Toradol, an injectable anti-inflammatory drug. ”It certainly helped, especially in the first months after the injury,” said Dickey, […]

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Looking Upstream in Doping Cases

The case against Lance Armstrong by antidoping officials detailed how Armstrong, as the leader of his professional cycling team, used performance-enhancing drugs over many years to fuel his run as a seven-time Tour de France champion. It detailed the lengths that many teammates, trainers, doctors and other associates went to enable him to pull off […]

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