Big Red is an endurance athlete that is going to be competing in an upcoming iro

Question

Big Red is an endurance athlete that is going to be competing in an upcoming ironman triathlon. Red wanted to improve his performance so he has been removing 500ml of blood starting 6 weeks before his triathlon. The formed elements were separated from the plasma and frozen while the plasma was reinfused into his body. Just before the competition, the formed elements will be thawed and injected into his body. Explain why this procedure, called blood doping or blood boosting, would help Red’s performance. Can you suggest any possible negative side effects? To catch Red, doping agencies often will often look for plasticizers (chemicals found in IV bags) and the level of BPG (2,3-bisphosphoglycerate- degrades in RBC’s while they are frozen) found in the red blood cells. What will these two chemicals tell the doping agency? Why do doping agencies also look to the reticulocyte to erythrocyte ratio to catch blood dopers?

Explanation / Answer

Blood doping is an illegal method adopted by sports proffesionals to enhance their performance by means of encahncing the number of red blood cells and hence increase the haemoglobin concentration (which act as oxygen carrier in the body) in the circulating blood ,thereby increasing the athelete's capacity to keep up in the competition for long by transporting more oxygen to the muscle .Blood Doping ,by contributing more haemoglobin in the blood,increases the maximal oxygen intake caoacity of the athelete , so that the athelete can survive tough conditions(strenous exercise easily and for long.)

Side effects:

2,3 bisphosphoglycerate enhances the capacity of RBC sto release oxygen .when RBC sare stored for a long time outside the body, BPG degrades and thus the stored blood when transfused back will have less BPG then normal, this differnce in the concentration is used as on eoarameter to catch doping.

plasticisers(materials which make the blood storage bags for blood banks ,example: Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) in polyvinyl chloride (PVC)) are shown to have beneficial effects on the stored RBC by stabalising its membrane. Plasticisers when found in high concentration in urine as well as blood suggest a blood transfusion

Reticulocytes are immature blood cells which do not have a nucleus ,whereas erythocytes are circulating red blood cells which imparts oxygen in the body

If a high number of erythocytes is not accompanied by a high number of reticulocytes--it is suggestive of the fact that the mature RBCs were artificially introduced by transfusion. and that EPO used which increases the erythocye concentraion suppreses the reticulocyte formation

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