Anyone tried EPO BOOST?

In an article in the newest edition of Bicycling magazine, it purports to be a legal and safe way to stimulate your body to increase EPO levels.

www.epoboost.com

Looking at the ingredients, I think it would do nothing unless the rider has anemia (or pernicious anemia, which is a B12 shortage).

But the ad certainly waxes erythropoietically.

Donate a pint of blood and your EPO levels will increase on their own.

I see what you did there.

Using a trainer and a pulse-oximeter, see if you can get your oxygen saturation down to 93. I've tried it, couldn't do it, but I understand that strong riders can. Stimulates EPO release anyway. Jumping jacks at 10,000' will do it. The pint of blood is the easiest. I used to donate plasma which always boosted my hematocrit, so I guess also stimulated EPO release. They take one's hematocrit before the donation, easy way to keep track of it. Plus they pay you. It's all good.

The 10,000' anecdote: my wife and I live at sea level and were doing to do a 10-day backpack in the Sierra, including an 11,000' pass. So we spent 2 days at Camp Muir, snow camping. Didn't climb, just hung out, exercised, and watched the fun. My wife has always had crappy lungs, but we dropped a fit-looking male hiker on that Sierra pass climb. Definitely worked.

Except it almost certainly doesn't work.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...0economy%20(RE).

This review discusses the erythropoietin studies cited by the supplement maker and others' failure to reproduce the effect even at higher doses, along with the unanimous absence of biomarkers of increased O2 carrying capacity, such as hematocrit and hemoglobin concentration. If erythropoietin really went up those things would have to change, as they do, reliably and at the individual level, with altitude training.

Viewed from the standpoint of clinical research, most trials in exercise science are garbage anyway. There are some admirable counter-examples, but most of these guys wouldn't know a preregistered study or a power analysis if it bit them in the ass.

Well, darn, there go my Tour de France plans....

So you're telling me there's a chance that it works!

Yes!!

Of course.

His haircut is now actually in fashion!

Is that true? That would be good news. The Red Cross sends me mail addressed to "blood bag." I'm not only O-, but my blood is safe to give to babies, which is untrue for a majority of the adult population.

I do try to supplement my iron levels, which is not easy because just taking iron pills makes me sick.

Yeah, but EPO goes back down once those RBCs are replaced by your bone marrow, and it's the RBCs, not the EPO, that you want in the first place.

I don't think EPO in itself is a thing for making one able to sustain fast speed. What does do that is oxygen. And EPO is what spurs the production of red blood cells . So more red blood cells means more O2 capacity. But remember you just gave a pint of blood. So when your body gets the volume back to normal the EPO goes down.

I just have thrown this out several times to see what comes of it. So far none have really bit.

Though I might wonder if one that regularly donates blood tends increase their normal volume of blood between donations.

This is all just my ponderings as a un-educated lay person. So I've probably got something askew or just plain wrong. Trust what MoAlpha says if he/she cares to add more about it.

I’ve learned to check before dismissing anything plausible out of hand, but I’m virtually certain this doesn’t happen. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad hypothesis, though.

I really don't think it helps my fitness. From what I see, the minimum donation wait is too short in the U.S., so it's likely I am chronically short of red blood cells. At least I've given enough blood that I feel better in 2 days now. It used to affect me for a couple of weeks.

Some or a large part of my hope in making that statement about EPO being higher after a blood donation was/is to encourage blood donations. Whether or not one gets faster might just depend on how good they feel about themselves for donating.

I think frequent donors are pretty dedicated to it. I know people need it and nobody is donating, so I donate whenever I'm eligible.
I have a cousin that has been donating since he was in college, 6 gallons or something like that. Turns out fraternities are good for something.

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