Question

Kidneys produce the hormone erythropoietin whenever more red blood cells are necessary. Think of reasons for the body needing more red blood cells.

Athletes who abuse erythropoietin many more red blood cells than usual. (Examine Figure 6.3 from Chapter 6). Explain why an athlete might die from having too many red blood cells.

Answer 1

The reasons for the body needing more red blood cells could be as below:

• When hypoxia conditions arises in the body due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD),pulmonary hypertension,heart diseases and sleep apnea , a need for more red blood cells is required.
• When we are training or doing exercise, we need more oxygen to be transported in the blood thereby requiring our body to produce more red blood cells.
• Presence of tumors in the body could raise erthropoietin levels which leads to more production of RBCs.

Having too many red blood cells is known as Polycythaemia.An athlete might die from this as it may lead to liver and kidney cancer.When there is an increased red blood cells in the blood, it results in increased blood pressure which can cause deep vein thrombosis (DVT) strokes, heart attacks and embolism and all of these could lead to death. Blood cancer or leukemia,internal hemorrhages and excessive bleeding could also be a worst outcome of polycythaemia that could lead to death ultimately.