EPO Does Work on Kenyans! Surprise!

epo enhanced blushing wrote:

That being said, I see it more as an interesting research question/problem to be addressed [and maybe it has already been answered in the literature].

I don't think it has been addressed in the literature. You can't formally test with the most elite athletes without getting them banned for it. I wonder if WADA could arrange for athletes currently serving suspensions to be test subjects with some consideration on the duration of their suspension, but that raises serious ethical questions.

you want wada to dope athletes lol

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Of course he has no mechanism to explain this phenomenon. It's as though he thinks the fastest guys are not made of the same flesh and blood as all the rest.

Actually, there are other contexts where performance-enhancing substances are thought to possibly help elite athletes less than recreational athletes. For example, some studies have suggested that beet juice doesn't help elite endurance athletes as much as non-elites:

On a related note, some observers suggest that Lance Armstrong had more potential to benefit from EPO and blood doping than some of his peers, because he had a naturally low hematocrit (thus more room to bring it up). In cycling, there's an artificial ceiling of 50 on hematocrit, but even without that ceiling, there are limits to how high you can bring it without killing yourself. Thus, some people have more potential to benefit from hematocrit-raising techniques than others.

As for Canova's specific argument, I have no idea of whether it's true, and tend to think it isn't. But the general idea that the group of far outliers in a distribution might respond differently compared to people toward the middle of the distribution is entirely plausible.

just sayin wrote:

you want wada to dope athletes lol

The study we're talking about was funded by WADA.

Canova entirely failed to respond to the scientifically demonstrated effect of neuroprotection, and to my suggested effect of psychoaction, in this thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5098005&page=10

Cabral, however, acknowledged the propect of "cells regeneration".

In fact, Canova has completely disappeared from this board since my post on that subject.

Now, I understand what would be said by Canova and his followers on this subject: that because the cited study was not performed on "super-elites", it doesn't apply to "super-elites", who have already raised their body's own neuroprotective abilities to the same level as that which would be afforded by EPO administration.

To that argument, I would answer that the activity of existing neuroprotective mechanisms has not been shown to exhibit a training effect--unlike, for instance, maybe hematocrit or VO2 max--and that such an argument therefore has no rationally believable foundation, and is only a mere suggestion, not yet raised to the level of even an hypothesis, and should therefore be treated as mere speculation.

Isn't your own argument built mostly on speculation? I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

No, the neuroprotective effect is not speculative, it is fact. Read the linked paper.

The possible psychoactive effect is indeed only my suggestion, as I have explicitly acknowledged.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

In fact, Canova has completely disappeared from this board since my post on that subject.

Even more amazingly, the NASDAQ has gone on a tear ever since your post, climbing nearly 300 points. That's a little too much to call a "coincidence."

hey sprintgeezer

can you use smaller words for stupid people like me

thank you

Hey retard, Canova was commenting on that thread up until I raised the issue, so there was a reasonable expectation that he would continue so commenting.

I admit, of course, that it IS coincidence--but I suggest that such coincidence was not accidental, but intentional, as it is a subject in which he has demonstrated a compelling interest in defending the unequivocal quality of his athletes' performances, and my post posed a verifiable threat to that unequivocal quality by providing a voice to which Canova had no immediate answer.

It protects your neurons from dying when subjected to exactly those stresses experienced during ultra-high-level distance running. That is fact.

Also, I suggest that it might give you a high because it works on the brain. That is speculation.

I think Canova left when someone hijacked his username and made a bunch of disgusting posts.

Anyway, I'm reading through the study now -- it's not about exercise, though, it's about ischemia. Do you have anything about exercise-induced hypoxia causing brain damage? I found some interesting stuff about exercise-induced hypoxemia, but nothing saying brain damage occurred.

Further, this focus on the brain seems beside the point. EPO increases hematocrit, thereby decreasing hypoxia. This is responsible for the increase in performance.

hold the phone wrote:

Sprintgeezer wrote:

In fact, Canova has completely disappeared from this board since my post on that subject.

Even more amazingly, the NASDAQ has gone on a tear ever since your post, climbing nearly 300 points. That's a little too much to call a "coincidence."

Ha ha .. awesome. POD.

GeezerJust to let you know ..people don't use that word any more, OK? it's up there with the N-bomb. Grow up.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Hey r-----, ...

I don't have any inside information but I have a feeling that the reality is that in endurance sports there is NO OVERLAP. What I mean by that is that all the dopers are better than all the non-dopers.

Ho Hum wrote:

This is good evidence and all, but once again nobody seems to understand what Canova was saying (for the record I think he's wrong, but at least read what he writes). He has been very clear that he's talking only about top runners. How do you interpret top runners to mean "I dunno, Kenyans or something"?

The author even mentions that he was talking about top runners only, then brushes it aside.

So I wonder if Canova meant that EPO doesn't work on the super elites OR it doesn't work ONLY on Kanyan super elites??? After all, the study shows that EPO works on the non-Kanyan non-elites, as well as the Kayan non-elites.

Even if it's true that EPO doesn't work on the very top runners, I also wonder that, can a sub-elite runner be doped to a super top runner, or even better than those super tops.

You are all running away from the focus.

The question about EPO doping isn´t if it works or doesn´t. The main question about doping is THAT IS ILLEGAL. Point !

If EPO t´s illegal, like it or not, can´t be take. Therefore second question is WHO TAKES, independently if it works or don ´t, and how to detect.

ONLY IN THE THIRD LINE OF INTEREST is the debate if the EPO works or don´t, or fi works to the world records or if it works on kenyans or don´t. Renato or anyone elsd opinion who takes or don´t and if works or don´t it´s useless and only does more confusion to the main focus. The main focus shall be to fight that running sport be clean and out of any kind of drug.

Except, of course, that the conjecture surrounding your 2nd question, 'who takes', would reasonably include the idea that if EPO doesn't offer anything more than negligible benefit to a certain subset of athletes, it's highly unlikely that many of those people take it. Hence the discussion.

António Cabral wrote:

ONLY IN THE THIRD LINE OF INTEREST is the debate if the EPO works or don´t, or fi works to the world records or if it works on kenyans or don´t. Renato or anyone elsd opinion who takes or don´t and if works or don´t it´s useless and only does more confusion to the main focus. The main focus shall be to fight that running sport be clean and out of any kind of drug.

That's not exactly true, because the ONLY REASON drugs are promoted & banned as they are is for the first reason, TO PROMOTE THEM and sell more of them.

The drug companies know that as long as they can blast everyone with nonsensical cr/p about drugs, that all the mindless people will believe they are good, helpful, and necessary for even their basic bodily functions.

This is exactly the reason, and exactly what's happening.