page_title: Blood doping
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Blood doping / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Fig. 1 Achieving Maximum Aerobic Capacity
context_page_description: Blood doping is the practice of boosting the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream in order to enhance athletic performance. Because such blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a higher concentration in the blood can improve an athlete's aerobic capacity and endurance. Blood doping can be achieved by making the body produce more red blood cells itself using drugs, giving blood transfusions either from another person or back to the same individual, or by using blood substitutes.
  Many methods of blood doping are illegal, particularly in professional sports where it is considered to give an artificial advantage to the competitor. Anti-doping agencies use tests to try to identify individuals who have been blood doping using a number of methods, typically by analysing blood samples from the competitors.
context_section_description: Blood doping is defined as the use of illicit products (e.g. erythropoietin (EPO), darbepoetin-alfa, hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) stabilizers) and methods (e.g. increase aerobic capacity by maximizing the uptake of O₂) in order to enhance the O₂ transport of the body to the muscles.
  The body undergoes aerobic respiration in order to provide sufficient delivery of O₂ to the exercising skeletal muscles and the main determining factors are shown in figure 1. The rate of maximum O₂ uptake (O₂max) depends on cardiac output, O₂ extraction and hemoglobin mass. The cardiac output of an athlete is difficult to manipulate during competitions and the distribution of cardiac output is at the maximum rate (i.e. 80%) during competitions. In addition, the O₂ extraction is approximately 90% at maximal exercise. Therefore, the only method to enhance the physical performance left is to increase the O₂ content in the artery by enhancing the hemoglobin mass. In other words, hemoglobin concentration and blood volume contribute to hemoglobin mass.
caption: Fig. 1 Achieving Maximum Aerobic Capacity
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