This is the face of an athlete about to engage in an illegal practice known as “blood doping”. He doesn’t look too scared does he, smiling at the camera and all while having a needle plunged into his arm, sucking about a full pint of blood from his body. So, while you may think that blood doping is entirely safe, hence the smiling man in the picture there – guess what – you are wrong and smiling man is as idiot.

Let us analyze this picture first. Notice that the participant [we'll call him John for anonymity's sake], John appears to be in lab setting. As noted above blood doping is illegal, and John cannot have blood drawn at a free clinic and then ask for it back so he can “shoot up with it” in his apartment. From this one can safely assume that John has a rudimentary lab of his own, or has an accomplice with their own lab. Well, either that or he bribed a nurse to help him, but that’s an entirely different subject. The assistant is also wearing gloves, and John seems to be in a sterile environment (maybe he did bribe a nurse). Even without these visual clues, you can deduce that blood doping does carry risks, and every precaution needs to be taken to ensure the blood taken, and the donor, are safe. In the background there is a bottle of sanitizer – safety first!-and a centrifuge. Blood doping uses the centrifuge to separate the blood plasma from the red blood cells used in doping.

All of the above inferences are, indeed, true of blood doping. It does carry risks, requires a personal lab to carry out because the activity is illegal, and necessitates a safe, clean environment.

Now, all of this may be a bit confusing if you don’t know what blood doping is exactly, and proper conclusions may be hard to come up with if one does not properly understand blood doping.

Blood doping is literally “doping with blood”, or the transfusion of RBCs (red blood cells). “Doping” refers to the use of performance enhancing drugs, particularly illegal substances banned by those who regulate competitions. Doping, particularly blood doping, are common in athletic sports, especially competitive cycling. Blood doping is not exclusively the transfusion of RBCs, however, and can include the transfusion of EPO (recombinant human erythropoietin, a hormone regulating RBC production), or THG (tetrahydrogestrinone, an anabolic steroid). However, John is doping with concentrated RBCs, so we will stick to that topic.

Blood doping has become common is sports because it enhances the athletes performance by increasing an athletes capacity to transports oxygen to the muscles, giving an energy, speed, etc, boost. The muscles require oxygen to function, and many doctors believe that it is the rate at which hemoglobin delivers oxygen to exercising muscles which can result in limited muscle performance. Blood doping, as you may have already figured out, boosts the amount of hemoglobin in the blood stream, more hemoglobin equals higher oxygen carrying capacity, equals increased muscular performance and endurance.

There are two ways to receive blood, or blood dope, autologous and homologous. John is going to receive an autologous transfusion, can you guess what that means? Yes, an autologous transfusion is a transfusion of ones own blood. The person has their blood drawn, then stored in a freezer until they wish to blood dope (freezing the RBCs keeps them sanitary with little loss of viability). This method has become increasingly common because it is easier and safer than buying blood on the black market for transfusions. Black market blood (yep, it exists), not only poses the obvious risk of contaminants like STD’s, but it may not be a compatible blood type. If this happens, the doper risks death because their own immune system will attack the foreign blood. Autologous transfusions are also easier, with the doper simply taking some of their own blood, as John is doing, and freezing it for later. A homologous transfusion is, you got it, a transfusion of blood that is not the dopers. This carries the obvious risks that the blood could be contaminated, incompatible, and expensive.

Many problems arise with blood doping, though long time dopers preach that it is harmless. Ha. They wish. One of the problems comes from poorly stored blood. This can be seen in the case of cyclist Jesus Manzano, who nearly died after using poorly stored blood in 2003(too bad, now he gets to rot in jail). A high level of RBCs can also tax an athletes veins and heart, because there is more blood in their circulatory system, and the heart has a tough time pushing sludgy blood throughout the body. As mentioned above, a blood doper also runs the risks of receiving contaminated blood and becoming sick themselves.

SOURCES
1. http://www.velonews.com/article/12924, A Doctor Explains Blood Doping, Shannon Sovndal, M.D., Jul. 24, 2007.
2. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0801/is_9_65/ai_n6160195
3. http://www.slate.com/id/2107096/