Question

Marty Macrophage has just been disqualified from swimming in the Olympics for blood doping.  He claims that it was “all natural” and he used only his own blood – no artificial substances - that would give him an enhanced ability over his competitors and therefore should not be eliminated. Please explain to him why his thinking is flawed and indeed his physiology is enhanced.

Answer 1

Doping is a practice in athletes to enhance their performance in sports by taking drugs or using some artificial methods.

Blood doping is done in order to increase the number of RBCs within the blood by using drugs or by using methods like blood transfusion and blood substitutes.

Marty Macrophage used his own blood for this purpose. He might have done autologous blood transfusion in which the donor and the recipient are same. For this purpose, he might have withdrawn some units of blood several weeks before the event & centrifuged it and RBCs are stored, and before the event he might have transfused the RBCs into himself to increase the RBCs number within his bloodstream that will help him in enhancing the oxygen carrying capacity of blood above the natural limit.

By doing so he is favoured over other competitor who have the oxygen carrying capacity of blood within the natural limit. Increased RBCs in bloodstream affect the thickness of the blood i.e. the blood become thickened and due to this heart attack can be happen. So it is dangerous for the athlete also.