Geek Out: Is It Fair To Ban Performance Enhancing Drugs?
Previous Olympics:
I had to do a little work to come up with that 1% figure, first of all I looked up how many athletes competed at the 2012 London Olympics and Wikipedia says that was 10768 athletes.
Next, I looked up the number of positive drug tests and according to this source it was 121:
https://www.si.com/olympics/2019/01/18/2012-summer-olympics-doping-test-121-positive-london
And if we do the math(s) 121 positively testing athletes out of 10768 competing is 1.12%
If you’re wondering why I’m quoting the 2012 figures not the 2016, turns out the testing process for the 2016 Olympics was a disaster, read here for more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/oct/27/wada-serious-failings-rio-2016-olympics-anti-doping.
The world anti-doping agency (WADA):
was formed in 1990 is the one that creates and updates this list as new substances come along (which sadly, they regularly do).
Here’s the list if you want to take a look:
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/2021list_en.pdf
Red bone marrow:
Bone marrow comes in two types – yellow, which is full of fat and what your dog likes to suck out of any bones you toss to her and red. Red bone marrow is the precious stuff that produces all our blood cells and it’s only found in certain bones such as the vertebrae, cranial (skull) bones, head of the femur, sternum (breastbone) and ribs.
Drop back down to normal levels:
You might want to check out our previous post, the most valuable liquid to find out more about blood but briefly, red blood cells only live for about 4 months so every day we need to make new ones to replace the ones that have come to the end of their lifespan – it actually works out that the red bone marrow in a normal healthy person is producing erythrocytes at a rate of around 3 millions every second, WOW!!!
Kidney failure and chemotherapy patients:
Like most PED’s, the origin of injecting lab-made EPO is wonderfully wholesome, helping patients with severe anemia. Anabolic steroids are another great example of this as they were originally produced to treat men with azoospermia – low sperm count. Presumably, the scientists/medics working with these patients noted a rather unusual and perhaps positive side-effect – enhanced muscle development and the rest, as they say, is history!
Boxing, running and distance walking.
https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/erythropoietin-epo
but doing my due diligence I note that they refer to Rashid Jacobs when they mean Rashid Ramzi. See the link below and moral of this tale, don’t believe everything you read on the internet!
https://www.podiumrunner.com/events/the-top-10-running-doping-scandals-of-all-time/
Producing more EPO:
This increased production of EPO is part of the acclimatization process and starts after we’ve spent around 24 hours at altitude. And what altitude? It would appear that we start to increase our EPO production once we get to around 6000 feet above sea level and yes, up to a point, the higher we go, the more EPO we produce. Here’s a pretty geeky reference if you want to know more:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5904371/#:~:text=(2002)%20showed%20that%20altitudes%20of,a%20minimum%20of%204%20weeks.
Around 50% higher/Lance Armstrong:
Eero Mantyranta’s hematocrit (defined as the % of each pint of blood that is RBCs) was around 60%. For context, the normal range for healthy adult males is 41-50% and for normal healthy females, 36-48%. As best we can tell (and it’s difficult because of the cheating!) it appears Lance Armstrong’s natural hematocrit was right down at the low end of normal (figures suggest somewhere between 39 and 41), so interestingly, he was actually dealt a pretty rubbish genetic hand! These aren’t the best sources but these tell a little more about Lance RBC number:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2013/01/15/seven-lies-lance-armstrong-will-always-tell/?sh=44998a1f7dfe
https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/u-s-anti-doping-agency-studies-lance-armstrong-2009-blood-attempt-convict-cheater-article-1.1113450
http://www.sportdw.com/2013/01/lance-armstrong-blood-passport-analysis.html
