Blood Doping: Beneficial or Destructive

Blood boosting/ doping and especially Erythropoietin (EPO) doping has become a fundamental issue in many sports such as cycling, endurance running and cross-country skiing. These sports required strength and persistence power for their performance. Athletes use the drugs to retain their power for the better performance. Erythropoietin or EPO is a naturally occurring peptide hormone, which stimulates packed cell volume production in the body in response to cellular hypoxia and anaemia. However, clinically the drug rHu EPO is used to treat conditions like renal failure, malignant and inflammatory diseases by reducing anaemia with fatigue. Its therapeutic effects are erythropoiesis (increased RBCs formation), elevated Haematocrit (Hct) and haemoglobin. Present study aims to establish whether blood/ rHu EPO doping increase performance or health risk in the competitive endurance athletes?