Canova was right! EPO does not work on trained athletes

Thanks for posting that. I tend to stay off the cyclingnews forum as it's a mess, very much like this study. It's frustrating to read such a poorly thought out study, although they executed their bad study quite well.They specifically state their submaximal 40 minute test was designed to not cause them exhaustion so as to better simulate a race. AKA "Hi, i'm a scientist with a lot of money to play around with and I've never raced a bike before."Even more ridiculous, when they did the "road-race" up Ventoux, the wind speeds were 25mph at the base and over 50mph at the top. That is absolutely not the environment you want to be conducting a test like this in. Of course everyone stayed together you fools!They do not state any individual results whatsoever. Everything is averaged for the entire groups.The results they got actually show how potent EPO is, but they were dismissing those parts of their results. Here's how it works. For every 10% you increase your hemoglobin level, while keeping blood volume the same, you will increase your power output by approximately 3.1%. They limited the participants to an overall increase of 10-15% over baseline and guess what they saw? A power output increase of just over 3% with an average hemoglobin increase of 12%. The real magic happens when your hemoglobin is about 13 and you increase it by about 40% up to about 18. At that point you are looking at an increase of power in the range of 12%, which any fool could see is extremely significant.There are so many things in this paper that are just horrible. It pains me that people like this get money to waste on their little laboratory games. At one point they even admit that nobody does a ramp test protocol of +25w every 5 minutes, but they choose to do it because they think it's better. They go against the industry standard because they think they know better. Typical labcoat blowhards that think the cavemen they are studying have no clue, when in reality it's the exact opposite.If they want to design a study properly, it's very easy to get in touch with Michele Ferrari.Overall a truly pathetic mockery of reality.

Aragon wrote:

Apparently someone uploaded the study as someone from the Cyclingnews-forum gave the following link to it:

https://issuu.com/newshourbd/docs/epo

helping hands? wrote:

Where exactly is the study located?

Apparently LRC mangles the link. Try this:

Or this might also get through unscathed, but you'll have to copy and paste to your browser:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhae/article/PIIS2352-3026(17)30105-9/fulltext?elsca1=tlpr#back-bib8

Interested Cyclist wrote:

Thanks for posting that. I tend to stay off the cyclingnews forum as it's a mess, very much like this study. It's frustrating to read such a poorly thought out study, although they executed their bad study quite well.

Have you checked out CyclingNews' "The Clinic?" There's some good analysis of the study by some of the clinicians that post regulary. Strictly moderated site: No trolls, hotheads, wiseguys & and all that 👍

beg to differ, pharma companies don't care about athletic market......

why is there a trent of their research drugs being used on athletes

even when still in trials and even if not ever approved .

1.

HgH used by carl lewis way before hit market ,

his source came straight from the company .

2.

micera was another example used by select few big names ,bekele etc

from 2002 till summer 2008 all while still in trial .

this is lances by far best epo to ever hit scene.

3.

Gw501516 , endurance drug that hit scene 2009 - banned winter 2013

only went through the basic drug trials then stopped ,

nasty stuff but worked amazingly well in certain events rudisha being one

many athletes that used it never quite at same level after use.

4.

IGF-1 lr3 the king of peds , the speed peptide

is only a research drug but has revolutionised sport .

hit scene with liu xiang and then jamicans and now south africans

and know the rest .

needs to be pharma grade and quite hard to get hands on it

many others like various SARMS etc .

kh wrote:

I am glad this article came out.

The pharma kings have been pushing EPO as a performance enhancer to make billions, but it's all placebo. Thankfully it's being challenged, as Canova has stated - EPO does not make a 12:37 guy a 12:20 guy. Just not possible.

I think everyone forgets that Armstrong, Hamilton, etc., were taking a cocktail of drugs, including testosterone and HGH.. both proven to work (and kill).

This is perhaps the most stupid statement on LRC in weeks. If you ask Armstrong and Hamilton, the first honest statement they say on the matter is that EPO was the best drug they took and the gains were more or less instantaneous.

You can not run 12:37 without epo. So epo will not turn a 12:37 runner into a 12:20. Because epo has already changed that runner from 13:08 into 12:37.

This discussion is about EPO, not SARMs in general.

BTW, Mircera is just EPO and EPO has been available since 1989.

And no, big pharma firms don't conduct trials of experimental drugs on athletes. It's the other way around - the athletes illicitly procure the drugs and run their own trials.

Pharma companies deserve to be slammed for a lot of things, but this is not one of them.

aduck2022 wrote:

2.

micera was another example used by select few big names ,bekele etc

from 2002 till summer 2008 all while still in trial .

this is lances by far best epo to ever hit scene..

Micera (CERA) was Ramzi's rocket fuel for the build-up before Beijing where he went nuclear. Anyone doubt rocket fuel go watch that race. He's running wide in lane 2 going into the last lap, explodes in the backstretch, holds off a charging Kiprop at the line while destroying a world class field as if they're low level pros...who could have imagined.

mythbuster wrote:

BTW, Mircera is just EPO and EPO has been available since 1989.

CERA is a more potent form of 1st & 2nd gen EPO's It's half-life is 20 times longer than first gen EPO, and provides lower dosing to obtain targeting Hct levels (once or twice per month).

mythbuster wrote:

Pharma companies deserve to be slammed for a lot of things, but this is not one of them.

Athletes thought that CERA was completely undetectable until Roche pharmaceuticals helped WADA design a test for it in 08. The joke was then on the athletes that were testing positive for it - Ramzi's positive from Beijing came in 09. And athletes are still testing positive for it to this day...imagine that (two from Rio last year).

Wow...that bad? So much for the "peed"-reviewed process of scientific studies.

Retraction in the foreseeable future?

And who says anecdotal evidence isn't realible when evaluating the effectiveness of EPO with elites athletes.

Calling Ferrari & Fuentes.

Dr. Ferrari says:

“EPO and auto-transfusions, in the manner reported by [Armstrong’s] teammates (micro-doses of EPO and 1-2 units of blood) correspond to an increase of Hb-mass by 5-10% for an endurance athlete weighing 75 kg, who has 9-10 liters of blood,” Ferrari wrote. “Such increments of Hb-mass correspond to performance improvements in the order of 3-6%. Equal increases in Hb-mass can be achieved with appropriate periods of altitude training.

“Therefore Armstrong would have achieved the same level of performance without resorting to doping, also thanks to his talent which was far superior to the rivals of his era.”

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ferrari-armstrong-could-have-reached-the-same-level-without-doping/

It is true that altitude training can increase hemoglobin mass by 5-10%.

Unfortunately, there is a little problem with the statement by Dr. Ferrari.

An average adult human has 4.5 to 5.5 liters of blood.

An elite endurance cyclist or runner could have 5.5 to 6.5 liters of blood.

No one has 9-10 liters of blood.

There is a high probability that Dr. Ferrari knows that no one has 9-10 liters of blood.

In conclusion:

1) Dr. Michele Ferrari is telling another big lie and is completely full of sh*t.

2) This is not a big surprise.

Dr Mike Puchowicz, AKA Veloclinic, totally ripped Ferrari's statements to pieces a while back. It's out there online somewhere.

Troll.Pup.at.Altitude.7,333ft. wrote:

Dr. Ferrari says:

“ 5-10% for an endurance athlete weighing 75 kg, who has 9-10 liters of blood,”

An average adult human has 4.5 to 5.5 liters of blood.

An elite endurance cyclist or runner could have 5.5 to 6.5 liters of blood.

No one has 9-10 liters of blood.

There is a high probability that Dr. Ferrari knows that no one has 9-10 liters of blood.

In conclusion:

1) Dr. Michele Ferrari is telling another big lie and is completely full of sh*t.

2) This is not a big surprise.

Ferrari is really bad at math. Really.

Aragon wrote:

Apparently someone uploaded the study as someone from the Cyclingnews-forum gave the following link to it:

Aragon? Is that really you?

No comment on this study? I figured this would be your "I told you so" moment. Still celebrating perhaps? 😁 Afterall, this thread is inundated with your skepticism of the effectiveness of rHuEPO with elite athletes. And all the positive rHuEPO studies & research? You found the them flawed, i.e., not involving elites, some studies not blinded, too slow of runners, less effective with higher VO2max's, and so on...and so forth.

Well...here's a negative rHuEPO study published in the prestigious Lancet...who could have imagined?

I don't know if I'm more shocked or perplexed at your silence 🤔

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

You can not run 12:37 without epo. So epo will not turn a 12:37 runner into a 12:20. Because epo has already changed that runner from 13:08 into 12:37.

^This.

Or something like that, e.g. a change from 12:58 or 13:03 to 12:37.

EPO may becoming obsolete with the emerging HIFs (oral EPO). One type, FG4592, showed no profound alterations to the ABP. Only the ABPS reached, but did not exceed the the upper limit of the parameters. Interesting read:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26808067

Endurance Sport Doping wrote:

EPO may becoming obsolete with the emerging HIFs (oral EPO). One type, FG4592, showed no profound alterations to the ABP. Only the ABPS reached, but did not exceed the the upper limit of the parameters. Interesting read:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26808067

This stuff has been available online for years now.

Interested Cyclist wrote:

This stuff has been available online for years now.

Where did you get that from dude? WADA only added it to it's prohibited list in early 2015, and the phase lll clinicals for Roxadustat were just completed last year. The first positives were 2 cyclists in the summer of 2015.

Rocket Fuel Rick wrote:

[quote]mythbuster wrote:

BTW, Mircera is just EPO and EPO has been available since 1989.

CERA is a more potent form of 1st & 2nd gen EPO's It's half-life is 20 times longer than first gen EPO, and provides lower dosing to obtain targeting Hct levels (once or twice per month).

Yes, but in terms of performance improvement, it's still the same as EPO. You get the identical effect as with the lower potency EPO, you just inject it less often.

The higher potency is actually a disadvantage for dopers. The longer half-life means is it will be detectable for longer periods of time. Much better to microdose with epoetin alpha every night after the testing window closes. With a half-life of 4.5 hours, you have a better chance to be clear by morning. The only virtue of Mircera for athletes was its initial undetectability.

But there are probably a hundred other variations of EPO on the market right now that may or may not be detectable. The stuff is mostly manufactured in India, China, Vietnam and Cuba. But there isn't much involvement by large pharma companies.

Heard about it in 2014. It was available at that time from a source working in Eastern Europe. All through encrypted anonymous emails.

Anyone, including Dr Veloclinic, can bash Ferrari all they want, but the guy is a genius on a completely different level. He is singlehandedly responsible for more grand tour wins than all other préperateurs alive. Unless you turn to the dark side you can not know the possibilities of the human capacity. He is a true scientist to the core, not giving two shlts about laws. More power to him; literally.

Not advocating it, but if people don't want to listen to those who know through actual experience, it's akin to burying their head in the sand.