new study shows micro-doping can boost performance nearly 5% and impossible to detect

Kvothe wrote:

4% - I seem to remember something else that can boost performance by 4% as well

There are hundreds of claims of performance boosting interventions. How many studies claim intervention x improves VO2 max and performance by (whatever %)?

Hundreds if not thousands of claims with no end in sight.

But look at normal variablity in performance, they are pretty much the same percentages. Why does this not get the attention it deserves?

Because it's not 'newsworthy' and there's no money in it. So the dopeology goes on hypocrisy goes on ad nauseum.

What was Federico Bahamontes' power output in 1959? Higher than Lance or lower?

Still flailing away with your wild guesses Jon? PUBLISH your studies. You should be able to make big pounds with your revelations.

Or you completely forgot that thermodynamics is not actually a science that is "done"

dopeology wrote:

What was Federico Bahamontes' power output in 1959? Higher than Lance or lower?

They didn't have power meters in 1959 you bliss ninny.

dopeology wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

4% - I seem to remember something else that can boost performance by 4% as well

There are hundreds of claims of performance boosting interventions. How many studies claim intervention x improves VO2 max and performance by (whatever %)?

Hundreds if not thousands of claims with no end in sight.

But look at normal variablity in performance, they are pretty much the same percentages. Why does this not get the attention it deserves?

Because it's not 'newsworthy' and there's no money in it. So the dopeology goes on hypocrisy goes on ad nauseum.

What's the matter with you Jon? Have you ever reviewed this study?

Double-blinded experimental design. Sub-elites improved their 10k running time at an average of 1 min 9 secs (~3.5%) post-infusion over PLA. Hcts increased ~15% over baseline post-infusion.

Here's what the researchers had to say:

"In either case, it was the RBC infusion that caused the decrease, and it lasted at least 13 days. The improved performance was related to increased Hct, facilitating aerobic metabolism in the working muscles. The identical pat-tern of interaction between RBC reinfu-sion and order seen for Hct and 10-k race time effectively excludes psycho-logical effect. Thus, only with elevation in Hct was the improvement in the10-km running time."

Jon will just say "their numbers are wrong" and then bring up Lance climbing an Alp etc. and possibly springy feet.

That's right...I remember now; Jon is obsessed with Armstrong's Alpe d'Huez climbs. Lol.

Yep. Jon builds that Alp strawman every time. It's always the "super power" over one stage argument rather than just looking at the big picture.

casual obsever wrote:

Some other tidbits taken from the tables in the article:

After the smaller transfusion, Hb increased from 14.1 to 14.6 g/dL, and ret-% decreased from 1.62 to 1.45%. Adding the larger RBC amount led to a further jump to Hb = 15.5 g/dL and decline to 1.21 ret-% (Table 1). The Hb change was not (just) a concentration effect, because the Hb mass increased also, from 833 g to 906 g (Table 2). That's a 9% increase in mass and a 10% increase in concentration...

There has been some whining and hysteria about the study in the social media, but here is one item I haven't seen anyone addressing and of which I don't know the answer not having seen the actual study. Because it takes up to two months to recover from anemia induced by 900 ml blood donation, did the microtransfusion elevate total hemoglobin mass above the baseline or were the subjects still relatively anemic before and after the microinfusion?

If the THb was still below baseline after the microinfusion, the study tells nothing about how much microinfusions of RBCs improve non-anemic performance and going beyond normal RBC mass, only that it is beneficial to become less anemic if one is anemic.

Before the blood withdrawal: Hb = 15.0 g/dL, at the end: 15.5 g/dL.

Control group: 14.9 g/dL, at the end 14.8 g/dL.

Hct from 43.8% to 45.4%, control group from 43.4% to 43.0%.

Hb-mass from 878 g to 906 g, control group from 877 g to 875 g.

Running comes from food. There is no extra energy in the gas talk of a turbocharged car. Yet, it is faster. Do you understand this? Or, am I just typing some car mechanic dogma.

dopeology wrote:

What was Federico Bahamontes' power output in 1959? Higher than Lance or lower?

cyclist from that era were on speed, possibly steroids and even blood transfusions. First studies looking at blood transfusions to boost human output goes back to the 1940s.

In 1945, Pace et al published their first paper The Effect of Transfusions of Red Blood Cells on the Hypoxia Tolerance of Normal Men which was followed by another in 1947, The Increase in Hypoxia Tolerance of Normal Men Accompanying the Polycythemia Induced by Transfusion. In both studies Pace and his team were able to demonstrate a significant increase in endurance post-transfusion.

casual obsever wrote:

Before the blood withdrawal: Hb = 15.0 g/dL, at the end: 15.5 g/dL.

Control group: 14.9 g/dL, at the end 14.8 g/dL.

Hct from 43.8% to 45.4%, control group from 43.4% to 43.0%.

Hb-mass from 878 g to 906 g, control group from 877 g to 875 g.

Thanks for the information, but as I get it, they conducted two infusions (135ml + 235 ml), and I would've predicted from the protocol alone that total hemoglobin would be slightly above the baseline right after the last transfusion. There are close to half a dozen studies where this has been established with up to 50 subjects with somewhat similar type of protocol, so nothing new here.

But the question was whether THb, Hct or Hb concentration was measured right after the microinfusion, because that is the new and the most crucial information of this study of which everybody is so interested about?

Sorry, I misunderstood your question.

casual obsever wrote:

After the smaller transfusion, Hb increased from 14.1 to 14.6 g/dL, and ret-% decreased from 1.62 to 1.45%. Adding the larger RBC amount led to a further jump to Hb = 15.5 g/dL and decline to 1.21 ret-% (Table 1).

After the smaller transfusion -> "2 h post 135 ml transfusion"

Adding the larger RBC amount -> "3 days post 135+235 ml transfusion"

Hope this helps.

Thanks, certainly helpful even when I should've managed to make reason of the data when combining your earlier posts.

From that data, it looks that the microinfusion part doesn't even fullfill the criteria of blood doping study, because one widely used definition of blood doping is "secondary polycythemia", ie. artificial elevation of RBC count above normal values. There never was anything of this sort after the microinfusion if the baseline was 15.0 g/dl and the participants didn't even recover back to that level (14.1 g/dl to 14.6 g/l) after the first infusion. And correpondingly it is far from obvious how much they would've improved their performance from "normal" values to relatively polycythemic values with 135 ml of extra RBCs.

Yes - missing here are the baseline performance numbers, unfortunately.

Yeah, unfortunately. On the other hand, if the baseline performance (Hb 15.0 g/dl) would've been same as the pre-infusion (14.1 g/dl), the study would have had very serious reliability issues and its inner consistency would've been close to zero. At least I would have difficult to see any Michele Ferrari telling his protegés the following:

Listen to me guys, there is this new interesting Danish study which is revolutionary in its findings. If you donate roughly 15 % of your blood and reinfuse only quarter of it back some four weeks later, you'll improve your watt output by 5 % over today's value regardless of the fact that your hemoglobin concentration is still lower than today's value. Gee, from 6.0 W/kg to 6.3 W/kg, think about that!

I'd agree, I haven't given much thought to where the extra energy comes from. Where does any energy come from? I guess mostly sugar and fat, ignoring for the moment creatine phosphate, protein, and alcohol. If these cyclists are sustaining a higher power level, I guess they are just burning a little hotter, because they didn't hit their thermal limit before because something else must have limited their sustained power production.

dopeology wrote:

rekrunner, where is the extra energy coming from? You're not thinking, just repeating idiotic dogma. Do you understand what calories are? A unit of measurement of HEAT PRODUCTION. The PED dogma IMPLIES that heat production and dissipation can be increased beyond natural levels, thus circumventing the laws of physics. But everyone stating the PED dogma is completely oblivious to the basic physiology of thermoregulation.

Please address the issue and stop avoiding it.

I wasn't pressuring you to read the study -- you questioned my interest after I said I had no interest in the results itself, so that was my response just for clarification. Actually (in this case) the abstract was enough for me, answering my basic questions, but thanks anyway for the detailed read and look at some of the figures. And lastly, nice try -- you know I don't consider Paula's 2003 values reliable enough for comparison -- even for a fun exercise.