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Emergence and occurrence of performance-enhancing substance use in Australia determined by wastewater analysis

Nature Water volume 1, pages 879–886 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Steroidal androgens, non-steroidal androgens and other non-steroidal performance- and image-enhancing drugs that are Schedule III substances under the US Controlled Substances Act as well as Schedule 4 and 10 substances under the Australian Poisons Standard are being used by athletes and non-athletes. Recent data suggest that they are growing in popularity among those communities. However, more information is necessary to understand the extent of their use by the general population. This study provides more information by assessing the emergence and occurrence (temporal and spatial trends) of performance- and image-enhancing drug use within the general community through wastewater analysis. For this, archived wastewater collected from 2009 to 2021 from one treatment plant and wastewater collected in August 2021 from 51 treatment plants covering 11.6 million Australian people (45% of the national population) was extracted and analysed for 52 performance- and image-enhancing drugs. These included steroidal and non-steroidal androgens, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta agonist metabolites, ReV-ErbA agonists, β2-agonists, myostatin inhibitors and growth hormone secretagogues. Analysis of the samples from 2009 to 2021 showed the earliest detection of a non-steroidal androgen, enobosarm, in 2011, followed by cardarine metabolites, ibutamoren and ligandrol and testolone in 2014, 2016 and 2017, respectively. The concentrations of all identified substances increased until 2021 following their first detection. Steroidal androgens and non-steroidal performance-enhancing drugs were detected in samples from 49 of the 51 investigated wastewater treatment plants. A higher number of different analytes were detected in samples representing catchments with larger populations. Our study demonstrates that wastewater analysis can be a useful tool for providing information on performance-enhancing drug use in the general population.

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Fig. 1: Emergence of non-steroidal PIEDs from 2009 to 2021.
Fig. 2: Occurrence of PIEDs across Australia.
Fig. 3: Comparison of non-steroidal PIEDs in wastewater and AAFs for the same PIEDs reported by WADA from 2009 to 2021.

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Data availability

The data obtained during this study are provided in the Supplementary Information. To ensure anonymity of the WWTPs, population and flow data are not made available, but instead, mass loads are provided on a per capita basis or as raw concentrations.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by, and received funding from, Sport Integrity Australia. K.M.S. was the recipient of a University of Queensland Research Higher Degree Scholarship. J.W.O’B. is the recipient of an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellowship (EL1 2009209). SCIEX provided access to the 7500 system mass spectrometer. Sample collection was funded in part by the Australian Research Council (LP150100364 and LP190101124). Pooling of the temporal samples was funded by the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE). We thank E. Knight who managed the DAWE project, from which the pooled temporal samples used in this study originated, and played a fundamental role in the planning and execution of the pooling strategy. The Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences, The University of Queensland receives financial support from Queensland Health, Australia. We acknowledge the WWTP personnel who collected the samples and provided flow data, catchment maps and additional metadata.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

    Katja M. Shimko, Jake W. O’Brien, Benjamin J. Tscharke, Ryan Shiels, Jochen F. Mueller & Kevin V. Thomas

  2. Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory (ASDTL), National Measurement Institute (NMI), North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia

    Lance Brooker & Catrin Goebel

  3. Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), Fyshwick, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Naomi Speers

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Contributions

K.M.S., J.W.O’B., B.J.T., N.S., J.F.M. and K.V.T. designed the research; K.M.S. and J.W.O’B. performed the research; K.M.S., B.J.T. and R.S. analysed the data; K.M.S. and J.W.O’B. drafted the manuscript; K.M.S., J.W.O’B., B.J.T., L.B., C.G., R.S., N.S., J.F.M. and K.V.T. contributed to the interpretation of data, provided critical revisions to the draft manuscript and approved the final draft.

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Correspondence to Katja M. Shimko.

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Nature Water thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary materials and methods, Fig. 1 and Tables 1–7.

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Shimko, K.M., O’Brien, J.W., Tscharke, B.J. et al. Emergence and occurrence of performance-enhancing substance use in Australia determined by wastewater analysis. Nat Water 1, 879–886 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00136-y

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