Blood Doping

• Blood doping is the practice of boosting the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream in order to enhance athletic performance. Because such blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a higher concentration in the blood can improve an athlete’s aerobic capacity (VO2 max) and endurance.

Types of Blood Doping

• The three widely used types of blood doping are:

• blood transfusions

• injections of erythropoietin (EPO)

• injections of synthetic oxygen carriers

Blood transfusions.

• In normal medical practice, patients may undergo blood transfusions to replace blood lost due to injury . Transfusions also are given to patients who suffer from low red blood cell counts caused by anemia, kidney failure, and other conditions or treatments.

• Illicit blood transfusions are used by athletes to boost performance. There are two types.

Autologous transfusion

• This involves a transfusion of the athlete's

own blood, which is drawn and then stored for future use.

Homologous transfusion.

• In this type of transfusion, athletes use the blood of someone else with the same blood type.

• Donated blood

EPO injections.

• . EPO is a hormone produced by the • kidney. It regulates the body‘s production ofred blood cells.• In medical practice, EPO injections aregiven to stimulate the production of red blood cells. For

example, a synthetic EPO can be used to treat patients with anemia

related to chronic or end-stage kidney disease.• Athletes using EPO do so to encourage their bodies to

produce higher than normal amounts of red blood cells to enhance performance

Synthetic oxygen carriers• . These are chemicals that have the ability to carry oxygen. Two examples are: • HBOCs (hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers)• PFCs (per fluorocarbons)• Synthetic oxygen carriers have alegitimate medical use asemergency therapy.It is used when a patient needs a

blood transfusion but:• human blood is not available• there is a high risk of blood infection• there isn't enough time to find the • proper match of blood type

Side-Effects of Blood Doping

• Increased blood viscosity (thickness) , Heart attack • Stroke, Infections• Risk hepatitis C, B and HIV) • Fever, hypertension,• vasoconstriction,• impaired oxygen delivery to tissues, • kidney damage• Chest pain• fever• headache• increased blood pressure• shortness of breath• swelling of the face, fingers. • weight gain

Effects on Performance

• Blood doping is most commonlyused by endurance athletes,

such as distance runners and cyclists. By increasing the numberof red blood cells within the

blood (and so increasing thehaematocrit), higher volumes of theprotein haemoglobin are present.Haemoglobin binds to and carries

Oxygen from the lungs, to the muscles whereit can be used foraerobic respiration.Blood doping therefore allows extra Oxygen to be transported to the working muscles,resulting in a higher level of performance,

without the use of the anaerobic energy systems.• Studies have shown that blood doping can improve • the performance of endurance athletes

Medical Uses of Blood Doping

• Artificial Oxygen carriers are the only form of blood doping which have a medical use. They were developed for use in emergencies when there is no time for determining and cross-matching a patients blood-type for transfusion, when there is a high risk of infection, or simply when no blood is available