Blood Doping Involves Removing Blood

Blood Doping Involves Removing Blood

Blood Doping Involves Removing Blood

According to Mayo Clinic (2013), blood doping involves removing blood out of the body, storing it, and then reinfusing it to increase the number of red blood cells. As such, the athlete’s performance rises when the increased red blood cells are able to deliver more oxygen to the body tissues. Therefore, some athletes like Lance Armstrong have undergone blood doping just before a race to achieve improved performance. I do not think the sporting world should legalize blood doping. Enhancing performance using an unnatural technique is cheating.

Research has found out that in endurance sports, performance can increase by 10 percent when individuals use blood doping (Solheim et al., 2019). As a result, an athlete that undergoes blood doping will have a competitive advantage over other competitors. Specifically, blood doping prevents a level playing field when only some athletes use the method. Faiss et al. (2020) pointed out that blood doping leads to competitive advantage since it enhances performance; hence, some nations might benefit unfairly from the technique. For instance, if a country has more athletes using blood doping than other nations, it has a higher probability of winning medals.

Moreover, blood doping might present some health risks to the sportspeople. Blood doping is associated with physiological side effects such as blood clots, stroke, and higher stress on the heart (USADA, 2022). Additionally, since blood doping involves removing, storing, and reinfusing blood, athletes are at risk of infections such as hepatitis and AIDS (Bird et al., 2016). Besides, mismatch of blood might occur if professionals conducting the process are negligent.

References

  • Bird, S.R., Goebel, C., Burke, L.M., & Greaves, R.F. (2016). Doping in sport and exercise: Anabolic, ergogenic, health and clinical issues. Annals of Clinical Biochemistry, 53(2).
  • Faiss, R., Saugy, J., Zollinger, A., Robinson, N., Schuetz, F., Saugy, M., & Garnier, P. Y. (2020). Prevalence estimate of blood doping in elite track and field athletes during two major international events. Frontiers in Physiology, 11, 160.
  • Mayo Clinic. (2013, June 13). Blood doping - Mayo Clinic [Video]. YouTube.
  • Solheim, S. A., Bejder, J., Breenfeldt Andersen, A., Mà¸rkeberg, J., & Nordsborg, N. B. (2019). Autologous blood transfusion enhances exercise performance - strength of the evidence and physiological mechanisms. Sports Medicine - Open, 5(1), 30.
  • USADA. (2022). Effects of performance-enhancing drugs. Retrieved from USADA official website.

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