Blood Doping

JasonBrooke · October 2012

I've been reading on the BBC website about the Lance Armstrong case like everyone else probably has. Now I am totally against the use of drugs to enhance performance in any way...but...the BBC have put up a video describing "blood doping".

Now the one bit I don't quite understand is the Autologous blood doping which means you store your own drug free blood then re-inject your own drug free blood back into your own body, no drugs involved at all just bodily fluids used in a certain way to help increase endurance during training or racing.

I know this is banned but the question I want to put out to the rest of the members on this site is WHY???

I understand the concept of injecting or digesting a foreign chemical into your blood stream to enhance performance is wrong on every level, but if you are only using your own clean, drug free blood to put back in your own body then why is it banned.

Please don't reply if you are only going to slag me off for this question...as it is only that...a question. I'm not in favour of cheating at all and think that anyone found cheating deserves what they get.

I just hope you guys see this as a logical question, even if, depending on your responses a little naive.

Thanks in advance

Mike Healey · October 2012

You re-inject your blood only when your body has increase its blood levels to what they were before the original blood was taken. By doing so, you artifically increase the nuber of red blood cells in your circulation system, which automatically enables you to store more oxygen and thereby immediately increase your cardiovascular efficiency without extra training.

This has the same effect that taking EPO has, sothat is why it's banned

RichN95. · October 2012

It's a valid question. Now here's another question? Why is EPIO banned while vitamin supplements aren't? After all EPO naturally occurs in the body. The answer is due to danger to health. No performance enhancer is going to be banned if it has absolutely no threat to health.

Transfusing blood bags is dangerous - especially if you don't have top quality medics. It needs to be stored properly and monitored. In his book, Tyler Hamilton describes what happens if you transfuse a bad blood bag. It's not pleasant.

Frank the tank · October 2012

In my mind sporting competition, whatever the sport is about am I better then you at a particular discipline. And we both compete as we were both created.

You and I may have different ways of training and eating/drinking but they SHOULD BE the only differences. Start blood doping or taking peformance enhansing drugs, to me, you're cheating.

mfin · October 2012

JasonBrooke wrote:

I've been reading on the BBC website about the Lance Armstrong case like everyone else probably has. Now I am totally against the use of drugs to enhance performance in any way...but...the BBC have put up a video describing "blood doping".

Now the one bit I don't quite understand is the Autologous blood doping which means you store your own drug free blood then re-inject your own drug free blood back into your own body, no drugs involved at all just bodily fluids used in a certain way to help increase endurance during training or racing.

I know this is banned but the question I want to put out to the rest of the members on this site is WHY???

I understand the concept of injecting or digesting a foreign chemical into your blood stream to enhance performance is wrong on every level, but if you are only using your own clean, drug free blood to put back in your own body then why is it banned.

Please don't reply if you are only going to slag me off for this question...as it is only that...a question. I'm not in favour of cheating at all and think that anyone found cheating deserves what they get.

I just hope you guys see this as a logical question, even if, depending on your responses a little naive.

Thanks in advance

If you want a real simple explanation, the extra blood youve bunged back in has say 40-45% red blood cells, thats the bit you want. You've instantly got more oxygen carrying capacity. (The white or plasma your body gets rid of very quickly, but thats not relevant to the performance enhancement).

Here's a way of thinking about it in simple terms... ever given blood? ...well, a pint of Blood is the amount we're talking about 'putting back in', so when you give a pint of blood and you're a pint down, get straight on your bike and go for a blast, see how bad you feel. Then imagine having the same pint but 'extra' added into you, can you imagine the positive effect?

Thats a couple of simple ways of putting it, but hopefully its the sort of thing you were asking for

mfin · October 2012

RichN95 wrote:

No performance enhancer is going to be banned if it has absolutely no threat to health.

Eh? performance enhancement is performance enhancement. Plenty of harmless drugs require TUE's, they're all safe drugs, but you have to have a reason to be using them for genuine medical reasons.

Even EPO doesn't have a threat to health if you take a bit of it (orange juice comments anyone??) ...love or hate the orange juice approach it is fact. But its banned cos it enhances performance.

(or maybe you just mean something has to have a reputation as being harmful for it to become banned in the world we live in with the way anti-doping seems to work?)

Frank the tank · October 2012

If I were an archer would contact lenses/spectacles be considered "performance enhancing"?

jibberjim · October 2012

The transfusions themselves are not a safe activity - they're not particularly dangerous, but the blood you're getting from the NHS is a few weeks old at most, to blood dope it needs to be a lot longer than this, Ricco was hospitalised through one just this year. You could argue that the clandestine makes it less safe of course.

Vitamins are just like eating food as it's still ingested and you won't actually get any more - injections are banned.

Caffeine is a performance enhancer, but it's not banned.

Safety and how common the use is makes a lot of difference to if something is banned.

finchy · October 2012

Frank the tank wrote:

If I were an archer would contact lenses/spectacles be considered "performance enhancing"?

Only if they have laser crosshairs built into them.

jrduquemin · October 2012

johnfinch wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

If I were an archer would contact lenses/spectacles be considered "performance enhancing"?

Only if they have laser crosshairs built into them.

Even better, have laser eye surgery and then there is no need for glasses :-) I did that last year and am a lot better shot now :-D

solosuperia · October 2012

jibberjim wrote:

Caffeine is a performance enhancer, but it's not banned.

It always used to be didn't it?

Sometime ago I vaguely remember a report about rider in a 24hr. TT who drank a quantity of Coca Cola quite innocently.
Finished half way down the field random drugs selection..........
Banned!

Mike Healey · October 2012

RichN95 wrote:

It's a valid question. Now here's another question? Why is EPIO banned while vitamin supplements aren't? After all EPO naturally occurs in the body. The answer is due to danger to health. No performance enhancer is going to be banned if it has absolutely no threat to health.

Apart from the danger to health, the sporting objection is that EPO creates extra red blood cells, and therefore oxygen carrying capacity without any additonal training on the competitor's part. Compare that with altitude training which also increases the number of red blood cells, but you need to spend time there and train for the body to respond and get the equivalent effect.

As for vitamins, while they may have some beneficial effects, I don't know of any research which shows that taking such supplements will create any improvement on their own.

thomthom · October 2012

There's no documentation that altitude training does anything noteworthy for you. Read a couple of months ago that there's a great chance that it has no effect whatsoever.

As for why blood doping is banned. It's simple. It's dangerous. Really dangerous without the expertise and then it's again back to having enough money and power to get the best men to do this for you - The same reason why Armstrong didn't win on a level-played field.

Omar Little · October 2012

What are the rules with blood doping in other sports?

Tiger Woods has admitted to doing it and top footballers (indeed entire clubs) are known to have done it too so i'm assuming it is legal for them?

chrisaonabike · October 2012

Here's a beginner's take on it. Just so you know, I'm such a beginner that I'd never heard of Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish or Vicky Pendleton before the Olympics.

If you take out a pint of your own blood, store it, and then train until your RBC count has recovered, and then put your blood back in, you get about 10% or more oxygen carrying capacity compared with me, who hasn't done any of that stuff.

If, all other things being equal beforehand, we were the same ability, you now have an advantage over me in endurance terms.

If we're competing, I now have to choose - go through the same messing about, or lose.

It's a choice a lot of people have faced.

Wouldn't things be better if no one was in the position of having to make that choice?

herb71 · October 2012

Omar Little wrote:

What are the rules with blood doping in other sports?

Tiger Woods has admitted to doing it and top footballers (indeed entire clubs) are known to have done it too so i'm assuming it is legal for them?

It's not the same thing. Woods had his own red blood cells injected into the ligaments in his injured knee to promote healing rather than intravenously to increase performance. It's legal, but controversial.

JasonBrooke · October 2012

Thanks for all your replies guys. I was thinking that the blood was put back instantly so it was a pint out and a pint straight back in. If its adding to a "full" blood system then its an artificial and shouldnt be done. I read somewhere that when Team Sky were doing their altitude training in Tenerife, they would do a session at altitude and would feel like they were dying, then they would do a session at sea level and were absolutely flying and noticed the difference straight away. Not sure what or where the boundaries are. Its like F1, you set the boundaries of what you can and cant do with a car and teams push it to the limit...I suppose in cycling this is the same. Money talks and every team is trying to steal a march on its rivals.

bontie · October 2012

The story about Sky here seems incorrect to me. If you “train at altitude”, there is less oxygen in the air you breathe. Your body then adapts, and creates/stimulates the production of RBC, which increases the oxygen carrying capacity. This takes time, therefore many athletes spend a bit of time training at altitude, and often stays at altitude close to an event. This is to minimise the opposite effects to happen when you return to lower altitudes.
You will not feel the effects straightaway

JasonBrooke · October 2012

bontie wrote:

The story about Sky here seems incorrect to me. If you “train at altitude”, there is less oxygen in the air you breathe. Your body then adapts, and creates/stimulates the production of RBC, which increases the oxygen carrying capacity. This takes time, therefore many athletes spend a bit of time training at altitude, and often stays at altitude close to an event. This is to minimise the opposite effects to happen when you return to lower altitudes.
You will not feel the effects straightaway

Not sure of the science, I think it was more one of the riders personal feelings after altitude training.

OffTheBackAdam · October 2012

Blood doping, has been used for many years, Lasse Viren did it for the Olympics in the 70's, Moser did it prior to his hour records in Mexico.
It wasn't banned at the time.
Transfussions do have dangers, homolgous (ie from others) runs the risks of allergic reactions (One assumes that the blood groups have been matched & thus there won't be immediate intravacular coagulation & death) of varying severity, infection - CJD, HIV or bacterial,.
For homologous (ie your own retransfused), then fluid overload may occur, usually packed cells are reinfused, so some of the plasma's been filtered off.
Add in the risks of the blood not being stored at the proper temperature, lack of sterility during collection & reinfusion and there's potential for a lot of trouble.
Like all of these doping proceedures, if it's done by trained professionals, the risks are low, if it's being done by the untrained, not necessarily so.

ben@31 · October 2012

How about isotonic drinks and energy gels? They're okay but red blood cells aren't.

chrisaonabike · October 2012

ben@31 wrote:

How about isotonic drinks and energy gels? They're okay but red blood cells aren't.

Do you not see the difference?

stigofthedump · October 2012

I seem to recall that one of the first warnings of EPO abuse was the sudden death of some scandanavian cross country skiiers. Their blood was so high in red blood cells that their heart could not pump it. In Willy Voet's book on the festina scandal (he was caught with the drugs in his car at the border) he recounted riders spending the night on turbo trainers to maintain circulation.

Not only is all this stuff unfair, it is also incredibly dangerous. EPO has been used in amateur races! It is expensive but not completely prohibitively so. Imagine the damage to our sport/passtime of ordinary cyclist dropping down dead.

JasonBrooke · October 2012

stigofthedump wrote:

I seem to recall that one of the first warnings of EPO abuse was the sudden death of some scandanavian cross country skiiers. Their blood was so high in red blood cells that their heart could not pump it. In Willy Voet's book on the festina scandal (he was caught with the drugs in his car at the border) he recounted riders spending the night on turbo trainers to maintain circulation.

Not only is all this stuff unfair, it is also incredibly dangerous. EPO has been used in amateur races! It is expensive but not completely prohibitively so. Imagine the damage to our sport/passtime of ordinary cyclist dropping down dead.

Wow can't believe amateurs would use EPO. That really does show just how low some people will stoop to win at all costs. I just hope there are no scandals involving Wiggins, Froome, Cav etc and that lessons have been learnt. The sports science available these days is incredible and cycling seems to be more of a level playing field these days...or am I just being naive again.

I wonder how the peloton feel about people like Contador etc coming back after bans and winning again. Will there always be a question mark over future results.

Blood Doping

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