Authors: Simon Annaheim Matthias Jacob Alexander Krafft Christian Breymann Markus Rehm Urs Boutellier
Publish Date: 2016/01/04
Volume: 116, Issue: 3, Pages: 623-633
Abstract
Erythropoietin EPO controls red cell volume RCV and plasma volume PV Therefore injecting recombinant human EPO rhEPO increases RCV and most likely reduces PV RhEPOinduced endurance improvements are explained by an increase in blood oxygen O2 transport capacity which increases maximum O2 uptake dotVO2max However it is debatable whether increased RCV or dotVO2max are the main reasons for the prolongation of the time to exhaustion t lim at submaximal intensity We hypothesized that high rhEPO doses in particular contracts PV such that the improvement in t lim is not as strong as at lower doses while dotVO2max increases in a dosedependent mannerWhile RCV increased in a dosedependent manner PV decreased independent of the rhEPO dose The improvements in t lim P +214 ± 238 L +167 ± 298 M +448 ± 627 H +697 ± 734 depended on the applied doses R 2 = 089 and clearly exceeded the doseindependent dotVO2max increases P −17 ± 32 L +26 ± 68 M +57 ± 51 H +56 ± 43 after 4 weeks of rhEPO administration Furthermore the absolute t lim was not related R 2 ≈ 0 to RCV or to dotVO2max
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