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EPO In Sports

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In a world of professional athletes, they are all very competitive and some will do whatever it takes to get an edge up on other competitors. Many professional athletes have been known to take performance enhancing drugs. However, marathoners and cyclist use a drug called erythropoietin(EPO). Johnson tells us that EPO is “a hormone produced by the kidneys that increases the production of red blood cells. EPO produces more red blood cells, which leads to a higher oxygen-carrying cap (Johnson, 2016, pg. 121). Taking EPO will allow the competitors to have a high level of performance longer. I do believe that the elevated red blood cells in one’s system could be dangerous to their cardiovascular health. If the wrong dosage is taken, the hematocrit can thicken the blood and cause a heart attack. The risk of taking EPO to win is way too big. First you could die or be disqualified and then the reason why would also come out which could tarnish an athlete’s name. In other words, there are no benefits to using drug-enhancers. …show more content…
However, I do believe they should be tested on a regular basis to ensure everyone is on a level playing field. Younger athlete’s bodies may not can the elevated levels in their body and could be putting themselves at an even higher risk. Brian Krans tells us, “Conservative estimates show that roughly 5 percent of students report using the most dangerous drugs — anabolic androgenic steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) — sometime in their lives” (Krans, 2016, para.

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