Who is doped?

[shoutatthesky]

The thing with EPO is that if the athlete know how to take it, there could be a problem to detect it even with incl EPO test. But we are coming closer fix this little problem.

Little problem? I'd say this is one of the biggest problems facing worldwide sports at the moment!

[Jorg]

Originally Posted by laminar

Bill, can you explain how the EPO test applied at the WC works?

Not... We only do a normal doping test that will detect all the doping you can found in urine. So no blood testing or anything. And we're not even talking about gen-doping now!

[trux]

EPO testing in urine is actually much more precise than from blood samples. EPO testing is doing routinely by anti-doping laboratories, so I guess it is the same case here too. It is true though that EPO can be detected only within few days after the application. There are more advanced and cheaper EPO detection methods in development and testing, so hopefully it will change soon, and artificial EPO will be detectable even after a longer time. On the other hand those who want to dope will find some other ways anyway.

As for gen doping - I doubt any freediver would have access to such technology. I also do not know how easy it is to get hold of EPO, and whether any freedivers could ever get hold of it, or afford buying it. But maybe it is not that expensive after all, I really do not know.

On the other hand, several European countries introduced lately anti-doping laws, so keeping or dealing such substances is a crime and any sportsman, or a coach can spent time in prison if caught. Positive doping test is mostly not sufficient though - in many cases it might be hard to prove the competitor took the substance consciously, but if caught with the "red pills" in a pocket, he'll be in serious troubles. I know of at least France and Italy already having such laws, and police doing surprise searches at competitors, coaches and sport physicians. Czech Republic is just about introducing anti-doping laws too and should be even stricter than in France or Italy.

It will certainly not scare away all, and may be even abused (you can secretly put a few pills in a fellow competitor's pocket), but maybe it will have some effect - at least the drugs may get more expensive and less affordable for common sportsmen, although even that is not quite sure.

[PoseidonSv]

I know some things about blood, the Blood i have gets higher consentration of red bloodcells if i donate blood regulary. i dont know if this is doping or not.
In fact you change the bodys function to have production of red bloodcells in the bone narrow up and running at higher production rate than normally if not donating any blood. Also ther is machines that makes it possible to separate red bloodcells and put them back into the body lets say from a doner to a reciever to increase the number of red bloodcells. I can not see any way that this is detectable other than to take a test check the content but how can you prove what is unnatural and what is not?

[naiad]

Originally Posted by PoseidonSv

Also ther is machines that makes it possible to separate red bloodcells and put them back into the body lets say from a doner to a reciever to increase the number of red bloodcells.

This is sometimes done by athletes and is known as blood doping. Blood is removed from the athlete and then put back later, so his/her red cell count is increased. It is very difficult to detect, because no drugs are involved.

[trux]

Let's talk first why banning doping at all: I see two main reasons:

1) It is immoral and unfair
2) It poses serious health risks

Ad 1) Some may tell: Why immoral/unfair? Because competitors usually train intensively many years since childhood, invest incredible amount of time, effort, energy, and often also finances into their passion, just to be overtaken by someone who used doping to get to the top.

Well, you can tell: he/she can take doping too if he/she wants to get to the top. But letting aside the simple fact that not everyone is willing to dope (whether for moral or health reasons), or has the material possibility to do so (some types of doping require huge and very expensive medical or scientific backing), it is apparent that once we consider doping acceptable, it would quickly spiral out of proportions.

While today doping is undeniable part of many sport disciplines, thanks to improving anti-doping measures, its practical effect is quite seriously limited - I think only few of us can imagine the consequences if doping was allowed. It would not stop at using huge amounts of all possible chemical substances - it would go on to genetic manipulation, operations, implants, intentional malformations and mutations, etc. I can barely imagine that anyone reasonable would want to see it happening (though I do not doubt there are such people).

And even if you allow doping "just" for the top pro competitors (as some may want to propose), it would have extremely negative impact on the amateur mass sport too. Kids, and hobby sportsmen would easily either lose motivation, seeing their performance are nowhere comparable even to fraction of the performance of the pro chemical monsters; or they would much easily start doping too just to get closer to their idols, or to have a chance becoming professionals.

Well, I think it is not necessary to rehash this topic more - I assume that most of DB users would probably agree about the immorality/unfairness of doping.

Ad 2) Most of doping methods (when not all) pose serious health risk. By allowing or tolerating doping we would actually push practically every ambitious sportsman to doping. We would actually condemn them to an almost sure premature death, because only those who would risk taking more and stronger doping would have a chance to success.

Now back to blood doping. I have studied the topic little bit in the past days, so you may profit from the research I did and the links I sorted out. There are indeed some quite interesting ones:
World Anti-Doping Agency
Welcome to Science and Industry Against Blood doping website
ALTDIRT adventure sports intelligence » Blog Archive » Blood doping
www.cyclingnews.com - the world centre of cycling

Principally, there are three groups of blood doping:
1) Blood transfusions (autologous and homologous)
2) Red blood cell production stimulants (i.e. EPO)
3) Synthetic oxygen carriers (HBOC, PFC, ...)

Basically all of these methods improve the oxygen stocking and transporting capacity, and also increase the buffering of acid lactic (the byproduct of anaerobic metabolism in muscles).

Blood transfusions are likely being abused in the sport since 60's, but due to their disadvantages (risks of infections at homologous transfusions, complicate handling and negative impact on training capacity at autologous transfusions), the chemical blood doping methods prevailed in 80's - 90's. Lately, the old-fashioned transfusions are becoming more popular again, because of stricter, more frequent, and improving anti-doping testing methods.

However, purely technically, all of the doping methods are detectable:
1a) Homologous transfusions (competitor receives blood of the same group from another person) are quite well detectable, and appropriate testing methods were already developed.

1b) Autologous transfusions (blood is removed from the body, stocked for several weeks, and then re-infused) are a harder nut, because the cells have identical genetic signature, but methods are being developed that focus on cell transformation that necessarily happens during the stocking (the blood must be cooled/frozen).

2) EPO (currently best known red blood production stimulant) is already being tested for, but the test method is not efficient enough, unless surprise tests are done during the training too - the tests can only detect EPO used in the last hours. There are new much more efficient EPO test methods in works - they need scientific validation (to exclude false positives) and fine-tuning the technology to allow inexpensive testing.

3) Synthetic oxygen carriers are also detectable, but the efficiency of the available tests differs.

So purely technically all of the above mentioned doping methods are detectable, but the available testing methods are not yet always sufficiently efficient, available, or affordable. However, WADA and (World Anti-Doping Agency) and SIAB (Science and Industry Against Blood doping) work on improving the methods and making them cheaper. In the linked documents they also discuss other strategies to keep blood doping under the control (i.e. the Haematologic Passport - analyzing and monitoring the blood of competitors over long periods also during training)

Cheaters will certainly always find a way to get an advantage despite improving tests and stricter controls, but hopefully thanks to the effort of the anti-doping agencies, the impact and extent remain under control. Also, thanks to new legislation measures in many countries, doping abusers or dealers may get prosecuted and spent up to several years in prison - hopefully it will deter some of those who are on the edge, and hesitate about doping. And since anti-doping laboratories stock samples for several years, it is quite probable that those who cheat today relying on the current holes in laboratory tests, will be detected and punished later.

I do not know if blood doping is already present in our sport, but until someone is proven to be doping, I firmly trust that all of freediving record holders are clean. It is absolutely baseless telling about someone that he is doping just because he did a new record ("he/she is better than me = he/she must be doping"). Also, in my mind, spreading hoaxes that freediving competitions are certainly full of doping is quite damaging the sport, and rather then pointing out an existing problem, it can trigger it, and bring some of confused individuals to experiment with it.

In any way, I think that apart from homologous transfusion, the other methods of doping are currently not too probable in freediving. Homologous transfusions are quite risky (infections), especially if done in amateur conditions. Autologous transfusions are practically excluded without having access to quite expensive technology. I am not quite sure about the accessibility of EPO and the synthetic oxygen carriers, but from what I understood, I assume that they are highly controlled substances, and hence may be difficult or expensive for a competitor in such a forgotten sport as freediving is. I admit I may be wrong, though, here.

Generally, the common health risk of all mentioned blood doping methods (aside from the mentioned danger of infections, immune reactions, and the de-equilibrating of the organism) is the fact that extremely high red blood cell content thickens the blood, and leads so to an increased risk of several deadly diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and cerebral or pulmonary embolism. This actually brings back up the question I already asked myself earlier - whether intensive long-term freediving training does not damage the organism too much (in similar way as doping does). Not only higher Hb content is to be expected at intensively training freedivers, but additionally the cerebral and cardiac blood pressure extremely and quickly fluctuates during freediving, increasing so the risk of a cerebral or cardiac stroke. I'd love to see some scientific research done on this topic, but so far did not manage to find any interesting documents. If any of the physiologists subscribed on DB looks for topics to study, I believe this one is very interesting and rather crucial.

[DeepThought]

Thanks for summing this up for us Trux.
I think Eric Fattah has posted before that hematocrit levels raised by natural adaptations are healthier than blood doping cause of different RBC size and maybe other stuff regarding coagulation, I don't recall exactly.
I think Frank Pernnet might have also mentioned something about thick blood regarding high-altitude inhabitants. If I remember correrctly I think he is said the risk of a stroke is actually higher in these populations. Maybe you can find their older posts if they won't join this topic.

[naiad]

Eric Fattah's posts...
http://forums.deeperblue.net/general...tml#post197303
http://forums.deeperblue.net/general...tml#post222066

Frank Pernett's post...
http://forums.deeperblue.net/general...tml#post425820

[efattah]

This topic is quite complicated.

First of all, freediving requires drastically different physiology from other sports. As a result, there are several classes of substances which have a dramatically beneficial effect for freediving, which are not even considered by WADA or other anti-doping agencies, NOR WILL THEY EVER BE. I hesitate to even mention the types of substances I am talking about, for fear of giving people ideas to try them.

However, I will mention that for freediving, in SOME cases, taking the 'doping' substance does not cause a health risk, but causes the opposite --> a health benefit.

One example is having a samba/BO. There is substantial evidence that having a samba or hypoxic seizure causes semi-permanent changes in brain chemistry, which increase susceptibility to further seizures (shown in babies, and also in animals).

There are also known substances (both drugs and natural herbs), which will prevent hypoxic seizures, such that a person using the substance either remains conscious or blacks out, with no seizure. These substances can dramatically reduce or even eliminate negative brain damage caused by a samba or blackout. They also delay the onset of the blackout significantly. So, they improve the performance, and improve the health and safety of the diver as well. So, is their use ethically sound? Not an easy question.

Several divers have died in no-limits. During no-limits, narcosis is severe and can cause a great health hazard, since the diver may not be able to think clearly enough to save himself. Several anti-narcosis drugs/herbs exist. Some of these have no known negative side effects, and could greatly improve the safety of the diver during extreme deep dives in constant weight or variable weight. Is their use ethical?

Other beneficial substances are food based. Anyone can cause an instantaneous 15-20% increase in diving capacity by making themselves 100g of aqueous garlic extract (all you need is water, and lots of garlic, and some patience). Studies show that a single 100g dose creates a 20% increase in survival time in hypoxia, an effect which I confirmed by trying the experiment myself. When I tried this experiment, I created personal bests which I have never been able to beat, no matter how hard I train. Ethical or not?

[Sergiu]

If one can improve performance with natural products, be it lemon juice, garlic and so forth, it should be no problem, though, even here it's hard to draw the line, coca or hemp leaves are also natural and if "cooked" well, could give one quite a boost!

Garlic = ethical
1l of Andinean highlander blood transfusion prior to competition...hm, no that ethical any longer.

[shoutatthesky]

Good point Sergiu, There is a very fine line. The important thing is that the line is drawn by an independent body like WADA.
I don't think garlic is on the prohibited substances list but I am pretty sure coca and cannabis are.

[Spaniard]

As an ignorant 'lurker' on this thread, does anyone carry out 'doping' tests on freedivers pre or post competitions as for example on cyclists during Tour de France?

[DeepThought]

Good post Eric.

Originally Posted by efattah

Studies show that a single 100g dose creates a 20% increase in survival time in hypoxia

Any idea of the mechanism involved?

[efattah]

The mechanism of garlic is to activate the adenosine cycle. The adenosine system is central in activation of hypoxic defense systems. Basically, when 'doped' with huge amounts of aqueous garlic extract, your body will respond to hypoxia and initiate the dive reflex & defense mechanism FAR sooner and stronger than otherwise.

Keep in mind that we're talking about huge amounts of garlic. It takes over 1kg of garlic cloves to make 100g of aqueous garlic extract. If you ate 1kg of garlic cloves it could be extremely harmful. The aqueous extract is harmless though.

To make an aqueous extract, you basically crush the cloves, soak them in water for a day, then drain out the precious water. The water is then evaporated, and the remaining powder is the extract.

[shoutatthesky]

Adenosine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Would garlic have the same effect as the adenosine that this article refers to? If so just watch out if your on beta blockers because they are contraindicated! Counts me out!