What is meldonium, the drug behind Maria Sharapova's failed test?
Before Monday, meldonium was a little-known supplement. But then Maria Sharapova held a press conference Monday afternoon announcing she failed a drug test at the Australian Open due to meldonium, and the supplement quickly entered the sporting spotlight.
So what exactly is meldonium?
According to the drug's manufacturer's website, a Latvian company called Grindex, meldonium -- also known as mildronate -- is an anti-ischemic drug used to help people with cardiac issues and circulation problems. Ischemia is a disease which interrupts blood flow to an organ or tissue in the body, so an anti-ischemic such as meldonium works to reverse that. The drug additionally improves physical capacity and mental function.
But according to a German research study, meldonium also helps increase an athlete's endurance, protects against stress, improves an athlete's recovery time after exercise and enhances certain activations of central nervous system functions. That means meldonium can be used to enhance performance.
The World Anti-Doping Agency discovered early in 2015 that an alarming number of athletes were using the substance, a sign that athletes could be misusing a drug for non-medical purposes. Given the substance's performance-enhancing effects, WADA added meldonium to its watch list of performance-enhancing drugs for 2015. The organization subsequently decided to ban it as of Jan. 1, 2016.
Meldonium is not FDA approved and is therefore not available in the United States. It is mainly used in Russia and Eastern European countries.
