Systematic Doping in Track and Field

rekrunner wrote:

Good (simple) explanation. Of course I meant extra oxygen carrying capacity brings performance, and not blood volume. I was only trying to explain the differences, and some reasons why Armstrong's case, is not necessarily relevant.

But my only doubt about your path 3 is in your conclusion "far greater". For example, lets say path 1 or path 2, both lead to 10% improvement. How much will combining them bring: 12%? 20%? more? If you've already exhausted one path, maybe the real gain is marginal, and not greater.

Renato also makes it sound that Westerners gain less volume. For example, maybe from 5-6, while East Africans go from 5-7.

I'm not saying I have information or real data, but just expressing my doubt.

This is of course a good question.

My answer is the following.

From my experience, and also in accordance with all theory I am aware of, going from 40% hematocrit to 50% yields roughly the same performance gain regardless of blood volume.

So if path 1. and path 2. both gives 10%

then path 3. which is the combination of the two will give roughly 20% (or somewhat less due to biomechanical limitations, but oxygen transport is always a bottleneck for endurance performance among well trained athletes).

So path 3. will give very close to 20% performance increase in this example.

What is true is that if going from 40% hematocrit to 50% give 10% increase in performance, going from 50% to 60% will not give the same performance increase.

Usually it would give a much smaller benefit, e.g. 2-3%.

And going from 60% to 70% would in most cases give a negative benefit (and very dangerous).

So for hematocrit you have diminishing returns once you reach higher values, with an optimum usually between 55 and 60.

This is where Renatos logic fails miserably. He states that the kenyans have relatively thin 40-45%crit (or actually very normal blood for endurance trained men).

And large blood volume (also normal for well trained people, it is not only east africans who obtain increased blood volume from endurance training).

Expressed simply, they have a large container of thin blood.

Therefore they will recieve alot of benefit from making it somewhat thicker, with very little drawbacks (increased viscosity). So they are the perfect athletes for blood doping.

On the countrary, if you have a small container with thick blood, there would be very little to gain from blood doping, since the increased concentration of carrier will be offset by the increased viscosity, yielding little or no net gain in total oxygen transport.

It isn't quite as simple as just looking at blood values. Runners from the Ethiopian highlands (includes the Kalenjin, IIRC) have some specific altitude adaptations that might change the mathematics of doping, e.g. genetically high hemoglobin levels.http://genomebiology.com/2012/13/1/R1Also interesting: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0838.1995.tb00037.x/abstract

If I'm reading this right, active but not trained Kenyan kids reached as high as 71 on V02 max at altitude.

High hemoglobin values (I think what you mean is many hemoglobin molecules per blood cells, since Renato already have stated that they have low hematocrit) doesnt change anything of what I did write above.

It only change the absolute value of the oxygen delivered for a given hematocrit value.

40% crit with a large number of hemaglobins/cell gives higher oxygen transport than 40% with a low number of hemoglobin per cell, but lower than 50% crit with a large number of hemaglobins/cell.

Both individuals would get rouglhy the same increase in oxygen transport capacity in going from 40% to 50% as hemoglobin/cell doesnt alter viscosity in a significant way.

A high hemoglobin count per cell might be an explanaition of a great talent, but does not in any way suggest that the benefit increasing the red cell concentration is diminished.

More than normal blood counts won't give you an advantage except maybe a psychological one. Because if you really had extra oxygen carrying capacity then you would be using more glycogen than normal.

The true path to improvement is not more oxygen carrying capacity, but better oxygen economy.

Alberto, how can you explain the values of Christopher Koskei, gold medal in 3000 steeple in WCh '99 ?

These are his value :

BLOOD VALUES OF CHRISTOPHER KOSKEI (YEAR 1999)

Date

Mar, 16

Jul, 8

Aug, 2

Training Level Mediocre Very good Very good

Shape Level Mediocre Very good Very good

Days of Staying at sea-level 12 9 4

WBC 4.98 5.50 5.44

RBC 4.49 3.96 3.85

HGB 13.4 12.3 11.6

HCT 42.8 40.6 38.8

MCV 96.2 102.4 100.6

MCH 34.5 32.0 31.4

MCHC 33.8 32.8 33.0

PLT 366 388 328

Urea 33 32 33

Creatinin 1,36 1,50 1,18

Uric Acid 5.6 5.3 5.7

Colesterol 88 92 86

Triglycerids 104 98 102

Total Bilirubin 0,5 0,7 0,6

Total Proteins 8,2 8,8 9,2

Albumin 5,6 6.0 5,2

AST 38 36 36

ALT 16 22 23

YGT 9 6 8

Sodium 198 204 190

Potassium 5,3 5,6 5,3

Chlorine 116 108 102

Iron 80 64 76

Magnesium 2,08 2,28 1,80

Transferrin 146 155 172

Aptoglobin 34 50 44

Ferritin 154 86 64

Folic Acid 9 ng/ml 21 ng/ml 19 ng/ml

Vit. B 12 724 pg/ml 784 pg/ml 750 pg/ml

The values are in 3 different periods (the days of his blood tests are 16.03 - 8.07 - 2q.08).

For every period, I considered the level of his training, and his shape. It's very easy to have a real analysis of the shape : there are the competitions, and when you run faster, your shape is better.

How you can see, IMPROVING THE SHAPE, HIS HEMATOCRIT WENT DOWN, and when he won WCh, he had 11.6 of Hg and 38.8 of Hct.

Already I gave these data, many years ago, to Malmo, and he provided for putting in a link the original files, written using the system of Microsoft Word with tables (I had this in my computer, but copying everything became text only).

How you can see, THE VALUES ARE VERY FAR FROM WHAT YOU THINK.

You are a physiologist, so I ask you to answer this question : IF USING TRAINING ONLY FOR INCREASING THE SHAPE THE VALUES GO DOWN, WHY I HAVE TO THINK THAT HIGH VALUES CAN INCREASE THE PERFORMANCES ?

And this is not an isolated case : I give you also the values of Kennedy Kimwetich, 800m runner for 1'43"03 and 2'13" in 1000m, already 32 years old (really), in the same 1999, when I went Kenya for the first time, and I had more than 500 tests with Kenyan in the University of Torino, because I wanted to understand the differences.

BLOOD VALUES OF KENNETH KIMWETICH (YEAR 1999)

Date

Feb, 16

Jul, 4

Aug, 2

Sep, 6

Training Level Mediocre Very good Very good Good

Shape Level Mediocre Very good Very good Good

Days of Staying at sea-level 11 4 1 36

WBC 5.44 5.14 5.26 5.78

RBC 4.18 4.00 3.86 4.21

HGB 12.8 12.4 11.9 12.3

HCT 41.1 40.2 39.2 40.6

MCV 98.2 100.4 101.6 96.4

MCH 32.9 32.6 32.0 33.6

MCHC 33.5 33.8 33.2 34.2

PLT 298 360 354 236

Urea 24 19 22 36

Creatinin 1,14 1,22 1.30 1,07

Uric Acid 4.8 4.4 4.7 5.2

Colesterol 138 118 127 156

Triglycerics 78 66 73 94

Total Bilirubin 0,6 0,7 0,6 0,8

Total Proteins 7,4 7,7 8,2 7,6

Albumin 4,4 4,8 4,5 5,2

AST 32 30 26 37

ALT 24 21 18 32

YGT 7 8 8 12

Sodium 140 159 170 140

Potassium 3,9 4,2 4,2 3,6

Chlorine 92 88 76 94

Iron 142 157 158 88

Magnesium 1,36 1,50 1,26 1,08

Transferrin 172 160 190 166

Aptoglobin 144 152 160 82

Ferritin 88 106 116 80

Folic Acid 12 ng/ml 15 ng/ml 17 ng/ml 8 ng/ml

Vit. B 12 536 pg/ml 602 pg/ml 588 pg/ml 406 pg/ml

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