Jonathan Cronk
3B
Intro
Blood doping is the increased of the number of red blood cells in the body in order to boost the athletic performance of a person, due to the increased oxygen uptake. Most methods of blood doping are illegal in professional sports. The reason athletes are willing to take the risk of being caught blood doping, is because it raises their performance to an extraordinary level. The reason blood doping allows athletes to perform better, is because the increased hemoglobin mass (or increased mass of any oxygen carrier in the blood) raises the amount of oxygen muscles can intake in a given amount of time.
Athletes can get similar results of blood doping by training in oxygen poor areas, like mountains due to their high altitude.…show more content… The main methods of drug induced blood doping is the administration of Erythropoietin, or HIF Stabilizer. Erythropoietin is a hormone produced by the body naturally that allows blood to have a greater carrying capacity of oxygen. It has however, been developed into a drug which has potential for being misused as a form of blood doping. The other drug associated. HIF (Hypoxia Inducible Factor) Stabilizer is typically used to treat chronic kidney disease. HIF stabilizer will activate the production of EPO in the body, which gives it use as a method of blood…show more content… The substitutes fall into categories of haemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs) and Perfluorocarbons (PFCs). HBOCs are engineered human hemoglobins that have been designed carry oxygen as efficiently as possible. This results in HBOCs possibly being more beneficial to athletes than hemoglobin equivalents. PFCs are synthetic compounds, composed of carbon and fluorine atoms bonded together, however they cannot provide sufficient oxygenation to peripheral tissues with conventional levels in the blood stream. The last effective way of blood doping is the administration of cobalt chloride administration. Cobalt chloride is effective in blood doping, because of the hypoxia like responses, and will stop the degradation of HIFs, which are regularly unstable. This results in EPO to be released throughout the body. It is currently understood that cobalt chloride permits Ubiquitin binding, but prevents proteasomal