A few notes to add to this debate. I took a pharmacology class this spring and wrote
a review type paper on the present state of what is known of EPO and some of its uses
and misuses. If anyone wants to look at it or see some of the sources I found email
me privately.
Secondly I agree with Buck completely. EPO is dangerous. Carefully monitored it can
be helpful. I believe the doses used in some of the elite athlete trials that have
been done were 50 unit injections received daily. The enhancement on a cardiovascular
test after 3 weeks of receiving injections was something on the order of 15% increase
in cardiovascular run time on a treadmill (with the discontinuation of treatment if
the Hematocrit level got above a certain %). If someone does the math on that its a
pretty good sized improvement.
BUT BUT BUT BUT, there are some very serious risks that one is taking by using EPO.
First is that using it will actually CAUSE anemia if you don't take supplements (As
Buck mentioned), and the viscosity of your blood can get so high with increase in RBC
levels that you have a great strain on your heart.
Is it something college athletes use? Probably not, is it available to one of these
athletes? Maybe but that is unclear. If the athlete did obtain it there would be so
many factors that must be monitored for it to be effective that it would take a few
very well trained doctors to do it. Why do you think Lance Armstrong has an
entourage? (Not saying he is doped, but heck he has a guy that his sole job is to set
up Lances altitude tent!!!).
Lastly but definitely not least, the kids that Brian said stopped smoking pot 10 days
before a drug test either 1) All failed that drug test because it takes at LEAST 30
days for THC to go down to a low level to not be detected (by most standard tests)or
2) They wanted to sound cool and anti-authority about the test and actually were not
dope smokers.
Oh, and one final thing. A professor here at Duke (the one who taught this
pharmacology class I took) has written a new and really good book about a variety of
different drugs used in sports. It is called 'Pumped' and is by Cindy Kuhn.
Jeremy Block
Duke University
PS -- Because of the way recombinant EPO (rhEPO) was made you can now test for it
using markers I believe.
