Quote Originally Posted by Gravymuncher View Post
Drugs such as salbutamol that dilate the airways work in exactly the same way as the body's natural systems; they bind to their receptors whch effect the dilation. By working in this way the lmiting factor is not the quantity of drug that you take, but the number of receptors you have for the drug. Once the receptors are saturated, any more drug taken will have no effect on dilation of the airways.

I don't have asthma, so when I run I saturate my own receptors, if I had asthma and I took salbutamol I would only be restoring myself to the same level as athletes without asthma. I dont' have a problem with this, though I can see there is an arguament that sport is about pitting one body against another, so maybe disadvantages shouldn't be negated this way.

I don't know anything about salbutamols effect on the metabolism, but it is a misnomer to suggest that asthma medication increases dilation of the airways when compared with non-astmatics.
Gravymuncher you wouldn't be restoring yourself to the same levels, because Salbutamol doesn't occur naturally in the body!

In other words no one has Asthma because of a deficiency of Salbutamol.