It’s widely known that some lacrosse players at Marywood University have been taking Viagra. The happy pills are actually for a study… a study about performance.
 

However, in a less fun twist, the study is about athletic performance not sexual performance (though I imagine that could be a possible, convenient side effect, no?)
 

The New York Times reports on the research into whether Viagra is a performance-enhancing drug and whether it should thus be banned from sports:

Except that the Marywood study does not involve the bedroom, but the playing field. It is being financed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is investigating whether the diamond-shaped blue pills create an unfair competitive advantage in dilating an athlete’s blood vessels and unduly increasing oxygen-carrying capacity. If so, the agency will consider banning the drug.

Viagra, or sildenafil citrate, was devised to treat pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in arteries of the lungs. The drug works by suppressing an enzyme that controls blood flow, allowing the vessels to relax and widen. The same mechanism facilitates blood flow into the penis of impotent men. In the case of athletes, increased cardiac output and more efficient transport of oxygenated fuel to the muscles can enhance endurance.

“Basically, it allows you to compete with a sea level, or near-sea level, aerobic capacity at altitude,” Kenneth W. Rundell, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood, said of Viagra.

However, some experts believe it will be nearly impossible to determine if Viagra provides a competitive edge, since the effects are so small and the pills would probably be taken in combination with other drugs.
 

Still, the World Anti-Doping Agency is invested in finding out for sure. Not only did it fund the Marywood study, but it also financed a study at the University of Miami. The Miami research focuses on whether Viagra helps aerobic capacity at lower altitudes.
 

Depending on the results of these studies, Viagra could be banned by September 2009, just in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. If the little-blue-pill-that-could isn’t banned, though, perhaps we’ll see some performance enhancing after all… in the bedrooms of the Olympic Village that is.