We have a previous post
regarding this subject, but looking at comments in www.slowtwitch.com related to anemia and how low hemoglobin is in
some triathletes prompt us to write again about this subject. The slowtwitch forum mentions a nonprofessional athlete who suffered an incident that made him bleed 8/29/18:
taking iron supps for 6 weeks now as I thought my H&H values,
and iron were low when tested 6 weeks back. I have sent latest info to
doc(online blood test order yesterday) asking for how to proceed/what to check.
Doc wasn't really concerned 6 weeks ago, but I was as I didn't enjoy be
tired/weak/fatigued/short of breath all the time. This is now 1 year(8/29/18)
post heart slicing and dicing. Any thoughts from ST docs and "docs"?
The UCI pilot project Following a meeting which took place in Paris in October 2007, between WADA, the French sporting authorities and the cycling family, UCI launched in 2008 a pilot project for the implementation of the hematological module of the Athlete’s Passport (Zorzoli & Rossi, 2010).
Since then, more than 800
athletes per year were enrolled in the program. UCI signed contracts with
several sample collection providers in order to face the high demand of in- and
out-of-competition tests. At the beginning samples were only analyzed in the
group of laboratories that have been involved with the nostart tests for many
years, because they were already participating to the same external quality
control program that WADA has chosen (Swiss Center for Quality Control) and
were all using the same technology. Progressively, as other WADA accredited
laboratories were fulfilling the requirements to conduct hematological passport
tests, UCI only relied on these laboratories for three major reasons: - The
samples could be directly analyzed for the detection of forbidden substances or
methods; - Decreased costs with sample transport when collection included both urine
and blood; - Ease of the laboratory with technical and legal aspects related to
anti-doping procedures (documentation package; chain of custody; testifying in
court).
The experts were chosen by
the UCI and WADA. All qualified in the field of hematology (either clinical or
laboratory), sports medicine, exercise physiology or blood doping. Each week,
10 to 15 updated profiles were sent by the APMU to the experts for review. In
these profiles the Bayesian adaptive model has identified the Hb or Off-hr score
abnormal with a 99% probability (either for the single measurement as a
function of previous results or for the complete sequence) or with normal or
lower levels of probability.
The main problem in any
research looking for answers related to a particular population is the
sample. In this case the professional
cyclists.
Extrapolating the data to
triathletes is not a big problem, hours of training are long, endurance sports
for sure. But let’s take a look at what
Vincent Luis has for breakfast.
This kind of breakfast make
you anemic in a few weeks. No wonder why
Vincent and his teammates had a bad performance in Lausanne; perhaps with the exception of
Mario Mola (small frame). The average
hemoglobin is very low because of the nutrition or bad illness. Well-nourished individuals will have
suspicions Off-Scores if we compare them to athletes eating the way Vincent Luis does. We have information from a newspaper on
Javier Gómez’s hematocrit values:
37% hematocrit the lowest,
42% average. This talks about deficiencies
in nutrients.
The average hemoglobin and
hematocrit from African nations are lower compared to the Europeans. This is not related to ethnic differences
because athletes like Bekele have values similar to the Europeans in the 90th
percentile.
In summary, malnourishment
exist in triathlon. 300 protein's calories per day could make the difference between being anemic or having a homoglobin above 14 for females.
The Off-Score is based on malnourished athletes which represent the control group. Is there a booth that takes complaints based on evidence?
The Off-Score is based on malnourished athletes which represent the control group. Is there a booth that takes complaints based on evidence?
