Alex Hutchinson calls out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runners

12 pages into it, and no one has said what about this "new" study is any different. Despite 8 or so pages of opportunity, apparently you have a copy, and you have said next to nothing about it. I suspect there was only ever one set of time trials conducted for the Scots, and a second set for the Kenyans, before 2013, and these time trials are just resulting in several publications from the same data. The details of 1:03 and 2:12 Kenyan runners looks "new" -- I don't recall seeing these details before. But compare this "new" 2018 study to what we find here in 2013 (scroll to the bottom, to the description of the last study, including a Table 1 with time trial performances):https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2013/05001/D_57_Thematic_Poster___Running_Performance__.107.aspx Here is the study reference: Blood parameters and running performance of Kenyan and Caucasian endurance trained males after rHuEpo administration. Medi Sci Sports Exerc 2013;45:402–5. Diresibachew H. Wondimu, Jérôme Durussel, Wondyfraw Mekonnen, Edwin Anjila, Neford Ongaro, Mathew Rutto, Tuwei Wilson, Martin Mooses, Evangelia Daskalaki, Yannis P. Pitsiladis, FACSM Or for the most detailed source I've found, see Durussel's 224 page doctor's thesis from 2014, particularly "Chapter 4 : Replication in Another Cohort (Part 1)" and note the extensive similarities to this "new" 2018 study:http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4962/1/2014durusselphd.pdf With respect to training, I just see "Subjects were requested to maintain their normal training". There is no indication that the scientists assessed the level of fitness before the EPO interventions, that the scientists were actively involved in the training during the study, or that the scientists made an effort to record the training load, either before or during, for example, to confirm the subjects continued to maintain their normal training, as requested. Here's another slideshow from 2013 -- Slide 16 shows the Scottish and Kenyan performances on a graph of the time trial changes:https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Application_to_EPO_Detection_Pitsiladis_2013.pdf Here's one showing just the details of the Scottish peformances:http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0056151 So, I ask again, after having read all of the above, is it worth the effort to read the 2018 study? Did they control training, before and during the study? Did they add a control group?

casual obsever wrote:

What? We have now over 10 pages talking about this 2018 study, as linked repeatedly, and now you pretend you talked all the time about some earlier studies, e.g. when you wrote "the authors" or "this study"? Tell that to your grandma.

Also, I doubt that you have read such a study about the Kenyans. Evidence? If you did, how come you don't know whether or not those were 1:03 half marathon runners, along with two mid-distance runners?

Probably you saw a misleading tweet from a hasty journalist about Yannis' short interim presentation at WADA, that you don't remember well, instead of reading a study. From that, you then made up your typical nonsense to downplay its importance.

Rekrunner, you crack me up. 12 pages in, with the typical nonsense from you, over and over and over again, and now you are finally admitting, in your typical obfuscating way, that you have never actually read this study, or any previous version of it. All you have seen is a summary of a poster of some likely preliminary and incomplete data.

And yes, I have a subscription to this and related journals because that's how I earn my living. Which is also why you and JonO sound absolutely comical when you try to talk about scientists or studies.

rekrunner wrote:

But at least I express my ideas like an adult.

Yeah Gary...like a pompous, arrogant adult.

rekrunner wrote:

Despite repeated accusations, it is not my style to harass, antagonize, badger, insult, mock and instigate, but it seems to be your style to do these things, then accuse me of it and play the victim.

I never had a problem with your magical 4%, or how you got it and I didn't ignore your papers -- but just disagreed with your interpretations.

It is not my claim, but here is some backing of Red Skies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCM4_5uB1ww

What's up with this corny video? It reminds me of the time not too long ago that you posted this video on a doping thread:

You're weird like JO. ?

I think you are just cracking yourself up, at my expense. Way back on page 7, regarding links to the new study, I said "All I saw were two tweets ... and an abstract, with the same methods, results, and conclusions as studies conducted years ago by the same people". "All I saw ..." seems to me rather unambiguous, pretty much the opposite of obfuscation, particularly when it was a direct response to you indicating I had not "read the article". You are kinda slow on the uptake if you only realize now, that for the 2018 publication, I read the abstracts (that were linked several times on page 1), with the methods, and results and conclusions, as I clearly indicated, without obfuscation, back on page 7. I know from our discussions of the Tuebingen study how much you value the abstract with methods and results and conclusions for relaying the key findings. It's curious, if not hypocritical, to see you downplay the value now. Throughout the thread, I have consistently interrogated what is new for 2018, and clarified that my comments and criticisms were known limitations of earlier studies -- this should have been another clue. You doubted that a Kenyan study existed before now, and now you know that the Scots and Kenyans were already compared, by some of the same authors, way back in 2013, with a very similar description of the method, results and conclusions as this 2018 study. Durussel and Pitsiladas are both listed as authors of the 2013 publication and the 2018 publication, and nothing to date looks more complete than the 224-page PhD thesis of Durussel from 2014. You have subscriptions, good to know. It tells me something about your character that you are contributing so little substance to a thread that should be about the contents of the new study, having your own copy of the study, seemingly unwilling, or possibly unable, to answer basic questions, like "this time, did they use a control group?" Instead, you chose to repeatedly attack me over what is really at its core your own misunderstanding, despite my unambiguity and lack of obfuscation. We are 12 pages into this thread, and the discussion on the study has not really even begun, and your contribution has been: 1:03, 2:12, mid distance runners were studied, training was mentioned, as was viscosity. What exactly is comical about saying studies need to control confounding factors, and include a control group? This is basic knowledge for first year science students. But don't take my word for it, here is what the authors said in the Scottish study:

When people accuse me of "trashing this study", I'm actually not saying anything that the authors did not admit above -- 5% is some measure of EPO, placebo, training load, and improvement in pacing strategy, especially for the non-runners (the Scots were composed of 9 runners, and 9 "other sports"). A better study design would eliminate these other factors -- this is the source of obfuscation, not me for pointing it out.

I guess these limitations also exist for the Kenyan time trials, repeating the same method, and judging by the abstract, I suspect this did not change for 2018.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about 2018, or the Kenyans, if you can.

Read the study

Sounds stunningly similar to the "method" rekrunner used in his "study" to provee that EPO doesn't work.

Gary, you're never going to be happy and agree with any study or results of a study. Even if the groups consisted of a thousand people in each one you'd say it wasn't valid unless there was 1001. And on and on.

Indeed! And I provided the information about the 1:03 runners on page 3, yet you continued to falsely claim that the subjects were not well trained and not elite runners. That was part of your obfuscation.

Nothing new here. I don't downplay that the abstract has the "key findings"; back then it was you who denied that!

Here the abstract provides the info of 5% improvement of altitude-living elite Kenyans after 4 weeks EPO, back then in the other case it was 44% admitted dopers, likely underestimated. As per usual, the article provides details in both cases, such as for the method, the group analyzed, the results etc.

If you really had seen a college from the inside, you would know that (MSc, lol that was a good one!).

But, in the early case you kept arguing that a hypothesis under two conditions mentioned on page 2, along with other hypotheses that you neither liked nor mentioned, was more important than the key findings mentioned in the abstract. In this case, you argue against the method, falsely, without having read the details, because you routinely enjoy making stuff up.

You had three major criticisms:

1) No control group. That was correct.

2) The Kenyans were not well trained. That was false.

3) Training was not considered/controlled. That was false.

I pointed out point 2 + 3 repeatedly here, btw. That didn't stop you from repeating your lies though.

All of the above comes from you putting your wishful thinking/your agenda over looking at the evidence.

Final word of advice: If you don't want to look at the evidence because it would cost you $25, don't argue against the evidence.

Now troll somebody else, I had my fun.

Indeed. H claimed that a proper study would have to have runners that had been "correctly trained" for 600 weeks prior to entering the study...

In before JO gets home from the warehouse...er lab wrote:

Gary, you're never going to be happy and agree with any study or results of a study. Even if the groups consisted of a thousand people in each one you'd say it wasn't valid unless there was 1001. And on and on.

If we want to simulate the peak conditions of the world best at their best fitness, we don't pick volunteers with an unknown training history and unknown current fitness, but those who have matured over many years -- 600 weeks is admittedly exagerrated for a study -- but elite runners often train for 10-12 years "building their aerobic house". But to be happy, I will settle for much less. Turns out 6 weeks would already be a major improvement. Several times recently, I brought up the example of a 1997 Stray-Gundersen altitude study as an example of a better design, which included a sea-level control group, and a 2-week introductory training phase, and a 4-week sea-level training phase for all subjects, before any altitude intervention, where all subjects improved by around 2.3% in a 10K time-trial. The scientists also monitored and recorded the training load of the athletes -- both the weekly mileage, and some kind of intensity corrected index. If the Scottish/Kenyan study was designed like that, with these three improvements, and arrived at a result of around +/-3% for both groups (11:00 and 9:00 runners), I would be "happy" with that result. I could think of more variations I would like to see, i.e. what if a "hi-lo" group then took EPO? Would we still find 3%, or will it be less like 1%? And I would still claim "diminishing returns" for clean athletes already running elite times (say 7:40 or better).

In before JO gets home from the warehouse...er lab wrote:

(Rek), you're never going to be happy and agree with any study or results of a study. Even if the groups consisted of a thousand people in each one you'd say it wasn't valid unless there was 1001. And on and on.

Do you mean the thread where I asked why more non-Africans didn't run much faster when EPO was both available, and untestable or when tests were easily beatable, and they were falling far behind the Africans?

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

Sounds stunningly similar to the "method" rekrunner used in his "study" to provee that EPO doesn't work.

rekrunner wrote:

And I would still claim "diminishing returns" for clean athletes already running elite times (say 7:40 or better).

Based on no evidence, but purely on faith.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

And I would still claim "diminishing returns" for clean athletes already running elite times (say 7:40 or better).

Based on no evidence, but purely on faith.

Is Alex Hutchinson promoting a book!

fact-based mesmerizing wrote:

OP says "runners", tweet says "athletes"

And we only know that EPO "works" (possibly confirmation bias) on the athletes in the sample, no reason to generalize to all Kenyan athletes.

There are NO valid studies showing that synthetic EPO helps anyone to run faster, than they would without it or with some natural means and no drugs.

ALL of such studies are only valid for confirmation bias, but not for anything truthful.

The same is true for ALL drug studies.

It has to be said that you could have played a positive role in this thread, by talking about the 2018 study, in a thread about the 2018 study, and for example, how it is different or superior than 2013, but it was you who chose to troll me for the last 6 or 7 pages, simply for asking what is new between 2013 and 2018. Did I deny the "Tuebingen" abstract? I used the authors own words to describe their lower bound. You advised me to read the "real" study, and not some preliminary public, but unpublished study. I did as you asked and once again I found the authors own words as to where they summarized their primary findings. Regarding the points 1, 2, and 3: 1) OK 2) Not so fast. This is not falsified by claiming 1:03 and 2:12 runners were part of the 20 Kenyans. The ~5% figure comes from an average of 20 runners who averaged around 9:20 for 3000m at the beginning of the study. (Not to mention 3000m is probably not an ideal distance for a half and full marathon runner). In Durussel's detailed thesis, we see that the best Scots were around 9:00 runners and the Best Kenyans were around 8:40 runners at the start of the study. If you want to call that elite, OK. But Duressel called them sub-elite, when explaining in the limitations section, that they could not obtain elite athletes for ethical reasons. 3) For the Scots, the authors explicitly said they were "were unable to adequately assess changes in the training load during the study". For the Kenyans, in 2014 Durussel said that the only training "consideration" was to request the athletes to continue their current training; he did not mention controlling the training either before or during the study. There are likely more quotes, but this does not describe an environment where training was a controlled part of either time trial, either before the study, or during the study. These were comments and observations regarding all the 2013 and 2014 publications I posted. It's fine to say it's false, especially if it is false, but a simple declaration is not enough, and adding 1:03 and 2:12 is also not enough to describe a group of 20. For one who is ridiculing me for pretending to be a Master of Science, and someone who admits he has subscriptions, you are not really supporting these claims very well, preferring to attack me. Once again, finally, when I start arguing against the evidence, at that time I will take your advice under consideration. For the moment my arguments are supported by the links and quotes that I provided, and are not against the evidence, but part of the evidence.

Stupid studies`, wrote:

fact-based mesmerizing wrote:

OP says "runners", tweet says "athletes"

And we only know that EPO "works" (possibly confirmation bias) on the athletes in the sample, no reason to generalize to all Kenyan athletes.

There are NO valid studies showing that synthetic EPO helps anyone to run faster, than they would without it or with some natural means and no drugs.

ALL of such studies are only valid for confirmation bias, but not for anything truthful.

The same is true for ALL drug studies.

Hi Jon!