Gene Doping

How will Gene Doping effect the sports industry?

Gene Doping is a different type of gene therapy that has caused a lot of controversy in the past 6-7 years due to the capability of what this method of doping could do. Gene doping therapy was started at Harvard in 1999 and was specifically used to get a substantial rise in the performance of athletes. This is done by genetically modifying cells to enhancing athletic performance. Gene therapy is done by using genes to help treat or stop diseases. This is dangerous because this can have effects such as replacing a mutated gene that creates disease with a healthy gene. Recently there has been genes found that affect the skeletal muscle size and metabolism which gives athletes the potential to be abused for gain in performance.
Gene Therapy is a procedure that uses genes to prevent and treat various diseases and disorders. This is done by adding new genes to a patient’s cells or replacing missing cells or cells that aren’t working correctly. But gene doping is an abused form of gene therapy which instead of injecting DNA to make
or replace a damaged or missing cells, the DNA is injected into a healthy to cell to enhance it therefore making a healthy cell even better.
There are plenty of genes that can increase athletic performance for example, lifting weights causes tiny splits in a person's muscles. By doing this it tells your body to create more cells that merge with your muscle fibers. After this process the body uses a protein called myostatin which tells cells to stop multiplying stopping the growth until the next time you exercise or lift weights. By using a form of gene-altering drug which could stop the production of myostatin in the body the cells will not stop multiplying thus increasing muscle mass.
Gene Doping had been turning into a bigger problem every year in competitive sports with players supposedly using the method of taking the performance enhancing drugs such as Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1) is a hormone that is similar in structure to insulin and works with Growth Hormone to reproduce and regenerate cells and EPO which plays a major role in the production of red blood cells. EPO is medically used for people suffering from anemia from kidney failure but athletes are abusing the substance to increase oxygen delivery to their muscle cells, giving them an athletic advantage in competitive sport. Athletes that use this form of gene doping could have a large variety of negative effects such as the risk of hypertension, diabetes, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease and in some cases taking this substance can be fatal. Unfortunately, athletes who chose to gene dope have a very low chance of being caught due to how hard it is to detect.
Gene Doping could become a very big issue in the world of competitive sports and may have a major impact on large events such as the Olympics.
Not only does gene doping have an impact on the fairness of competitive sport it can also be very dangerous. Recently the EPO gene was tested on monkeys to see if it would have an increase in oxygen intake but instead, the monkey's blood became extremely thick forcing researchers to bleed the monkeys preventing strokes and heart failure. There are many, many risks with gene doping and sometimes it’s good to think would it even be worth it? There has been no evidence that gene doping has been used in sports yet and some scientists even say that gene doping won’t give athletes the super human like advantages they expect because you can’t safely put enough of the EPO gene into a human body without it becoming potentially deadly, causing blood
thickening.
In the "muscle mice" project mice could run at twice the speed and twice as fast as normal mice and this could be replicated in athletes it would give an incredibly unfair advantage.
Sometimes gene doping isn’t always bad. Some scientific studies have suggested that gene doping could be a good thing for competitive sports. If gene therapy drugs became more advanced and widespread, it could prolong athlete’s careers and drastically increase the speed of a return from injury. If this were to one day happen the virus used with IGF-1 and EPO called a vector will create stronger more flexible muscles and even stronger bones. Gene doping would also make it so athletes can maximize their athletic performance and this would be a very good supplement to training regimens. Unlike in the "muscle mice," project gene doping would not significantly tip the scales enough for the athletes that utilize it. Gene doping doesn't effect skill, practice or mental ability and other important aspects of sports and without this athletic success is very limited.
In conclusion, Gene doping is still very new to the world of professional sports with no proven studies of athletes genetically changing altering their genes to gain competitive advantages. The fact that gene doping is nearly undetectable is very scary because competitive sport is meant to be an even playing field despite physical advantages. The more research done of gene doping the more likely elite athletes are going to want to get their hands on it, knowing it’s nearly impossible for them to get caught. Despite Gene doping being a major concern for the sports industry there is still a lot of research being done, which could shorten injury and provide medical help for a cheaper price.