Erythropoietin and Athletes
Erythropoietin and Athletes
Steven D. Jackson
Student, American Military University
Abstract Erythropoietin (EPO) use as a performance enhancing agent in sport carries both significant and detrimental risks to go along with its suggested benefits. As such, it was banned by the International Olympic Committee in 1990. Shortly thereafter, successful and reliable testing methods have been developed to test athletes for its potential use. Despite widespread knowledge of its potential adverse effects and the testing for its attempted use, EPO use remains substantial amongst endurance athletes of nearly all ages and disciplines, both professional and amateur. This paper will provide a history of EPO as a performance enhancing substance, explain its associated risks and perceived and actual benefits, attempt to analyze why athletes feel compelled to use it, and examine the sanctions, regulations, and weighty repercussions associated with its use.
Erythropoietin and Athletes
In sport, there are a virtually limitless number of ways in which one can influence or positively impact physical or mental performance. These methods can come in the form of mechanical aids, pharmacological aids, physiological aids, nutritional aids, and psychological aids. Regardless of its source, any means by which one seeks to improve performance by enhancing the physiological capacity of a particular system of the body, removing psychological constraints which adversely affect performance, or by accelerating recovery from training or competition is called an ergogenic aid (MacKenzie, 2001). These may include something as simple and innocuous as a healthy meal consumed the night prior to a competition, but seemingly, the ergogenic aids which athletes are turning to more increasingly are those that have been banned by organizations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency, the International Olympic Committee, and the like. Often, these substances have been banned because they not
Steven D. Jackson
Student, American Military University
Abstract Erythropoietin (EPO) use as a performance enhancing agent in sport carries both significant and detrimental risks to go along with its suggested benefits. As such, it was banned by the International Olympic Committee in 1990. Shortly thereafter, successful and reliable testing methods have been developed to test athletes for its potential use. Despite widespread knowledge of its potential adverse effects and the testing for its attempted use, EPO use remains substantial amongst endurance athletes of nearly all ages and disciplines, both professional and amateur. This paper will provide a history of EPO as a performance enhancing substance, explain its associated risks and perceived and actual benefits, attempt to analyze why athletes feel compelled to use it, and examine the sanctions, regulations, and weighty repercussions associated with its use.
Erythropoietin and Athletes
In sport, there are a virtually limitless number of ways in which one can influence or positively impact physical or mental performance. These methods can come in the form of mechanical aids, pharmacological aids, physiological aids, nutritional aids, and psychological aids. Regardless of its source, any means by which one seeks to improve performance by enhancing the physiological capacity of a particular system of the body, removing psychological constraints which adversely affect performance, or by accelerating recovery from training or competition is called an ergogenic aid (MacKenzie, 2001). These may include something as simple and innocuous as a healthy meal consumed the night prior to a competition, but seemingly, the ergogenic aids which athletes are turning to more increasingly are those that have been banned by organizations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency, the International Olympic Committee, and the like. Often, these substances have been banned because they not
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