Super Athletes or Engineered Cheaters?
{draw:frame} {draw:frame} First, erythropoietin is a hormone that is mostly secreted by the kidneys (Unal). When its amount increases in the blood, it causes an increase of erythrocytes in the blood, which in turn increases hemoglobin levels. Increased hemoglobin levels would lead to increased oxygen in the blood, and blood oxygenation is a key factor in optimizing muscular activity, and increasing oxygen transport to tissue is associated with improvement in athletic performance. The aerobic capacity is increased and exhaustion is delayed. While this manipulation would benefit athletes by enhancing their muscle performance, there are also risks associated with such a manipulation. Artificially increasing EPO levels in healthy people will increase the amount of red blood cells and therefore viscosity, which in turn will increase the risk of heart attack and paralysis (Wells). As the blood thickens, it will become difficult for the body to successfully pump blood to all tissues of the body, causing clots wherever vessels cannot compensate for this increased density (Haisma). Furthermore, being able to increase EPO production does not mean being able to decrease the production when needed (Unal). Athletes using synthetic EPO hormones are facing similar risks, but the hormone is metabolized in the system and the proportion of red blood cells therefore returns to normal levels, whereas injection for the gene EPO can mean continuous production of red blood cells. The detection of erythropoietin abuse is based on both direct and indirect methods, both of which have several limitations with regards to testing athletes (Baoutina). In addition, current detection methods cannot cope with the emerging doping strategies of EPO mimicry, analogues and gene doping, and thus novel detection strategies are urgently needed. Direct detection methods for EPO misuse can be either pharmacological approaches that identify exogenous substances...