Hines Ward and His Super Bowl Blood Treatment

I don’t condemn the PRP procedure but I also don’t see any fundamental difference between the two treatments. Sure RBC and plasma affect the body in different ways, but both seem to be using blood factors to gain an edge (whether it be in oxygen transportation or healing capacity) over competition. To say that the difference in treatment is in the intentions and specificity also seems misinformed. Many baseball players have admitted to injecting HGH for its healing properties to help rehab from a specific injury. Obviously legal means are used for gaining an edge all the time whether it be by supplements, pain killers, or the aforementioned field oxygen so its just a matter of drawing a line somewhere–probably player safety. Seems like modern medicine is just making it that much more difficult to wipe that stupid smile of Ward’s face.

Hey guys thanks for clearing that up for me. I wasn’t able to look at the telecast again to see wat she said exactly happened, and at first it sounded like the blood doping thing to me, but if it isn’t then it isn’t . They still shoulda called the TD celebration penalty though!!!

Biology Major here
Platelets do not carry oxygen, and so do not affect the body’s aerobic capacity.
Platelets are part of the blood clotting process, but i have no idea how they would help improve healing time or reduce the impact of an injury like wards. So yes BUSTED, Ward did not cheat.

The concentrated red blood cells used for blood doping are entirely different.

While this sounds legit, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Steelers cheated. The Steel Curtain team of the 70′s should have been called the Steroids Curtain. Is it any wonder why many of them are dying earlier than their NFL contemporaries?
And yes, I’m a bitter Browns fan.

Whether or not that’s any different than using, say, HGH to recover from an injury is debatable. But I don’t think what Ward did is at all like the blood doping they talk about in cycling.

The blood-doping in cycling is similar to what happens to one’s blood at high altitudes. This is why climbers on Everest spend time acclimating at various base camps… to allow the body time to manufacture additional red blood cells to increase capacity to carry more oxygen, which is necessary for survival at altitude where the oxygen concentration in the air drops dramatically. Artificially doing this (such as in blood doping) has obvious benefits to a distance athlete, as it improve their capacity to deliver more oxygen to their muscles. I’m sure the benefit to an NFL player would be debatable, as their activity is more anaerobic than aerobic. It wouldn’t help them get off the line any quicker, or tackle any harder, but it might help them on a 99yd interception or kickoff return.

But what they’re doing in MLS and the NFL is a local injection into tissue, and would not provide any of the aerobic benefits as they aren’t increasing the number of red cells in the player’s bloodstream.

I agree, Dean. But whether what Ward did was ethical or allowable, it is not the same as blood-doping–an artificial attempt to mimic the body’s response of producing additional red blood cells–which is what I was trying to point out. I type off the top of my head and hit submit before proofreading my comments most times… and don’t mean for my first sentence to read in any way that I’m trying to justify what Ward did. But regardless of what he did, based on what’s been reported, it wasn’t blood doping. Ward’s treatment may ultimately be deemed legitimate medicine or banned as cheating, but it’s not blood doping–they weren’t altering the blood in his body, they removed it and injected it as a treatment (see tommyd’s post above,) which isn’t the same.

MJ, I agree with you on your take on blood doping (and like the climbing analogy) and I definitely mixed up my terms. I should’ve been more specific to point out that regardless of the method used, the ethical grey area still appears even when the treatment (or doping) is done in response to injury. There is a difference between localized treatments (what you described and what Tommy above had for his hamstrings) and treatments that also have ancillary effects on fitness, but I’m not sure if that distinction covers the ethical issue. Faster recovery from injury is still performance enhancement, as injuries are a major part of all sports.

Craig brings up the issue of legality (within the sport), which I like because it avoids the ethics debate. While the blood doping ban will need a justification, it’s perfectly ok to have arbitrary rules that must be followed (ie double dribble, no forward passes beyond the line of scrimmage, etc.) that have nothing to do with any larger community ethics.

@Dean – agree 100%.

actually, contrary to popular belief blood doping does not even have any positive effects on the oxygen delivery to tissue. Increasing the RBC count increases the viscosity of the blood. Since the blood is more viscous it is met with more resistance in the arteries and blood flow is slowed. Since blood flow is slowed, so is delivery of oxygen to the tissues. So according to my physiology professor (I’m a graduate pharmacy student) this is a moot point anyway.

On the other hand, I’m all for taking away any credibility from Pittsburgh so I say he cheated.

That’s interesting, Flea. Do you know if blood doping is somehow different from what happens in high altitude acclimation? I assumed it achieved the same effect, perhaps it does not (I’m not a scientist, just familiar with climbing.) Or perhaps there are other factors that make the increased RBC count effective at extreme altitudes, such as reduced pressure?

This thread made me think of this article – a GREAT read that explains some of the blood-doping programs in 90′s cycling. I was able to locate it in the SI Vault.

Reading this was one of those points where sports wasn’t the same afterwards:

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1016322/index.htm

i got my last comment (#3) from clint eastwood in gran torino! i need to stop watching movies and hating the steelers so much then

PS this website needs more science, this post really gets my blood pumping! (yuk, yuk)

Flea – I don’t know much about the physiology of it so I’d say your prof has more credibility that I do. All I know is that EPO has been used to blood dope, and it directly effects the RBC count in blood. There’s also been plenty of cases where the blood is centrifuged, the RBCs separated, cooled, and later reinjected to the athlete to give a supposed edge.

Whether this indeed does increase blood viscosity and slow delivery of O2 to cells, I don’t know but that makes sense from a common sense standpoint.

Half the time it’s a mental edge that’s gained and that’s it. High altitude training works because it increases O2 binding efficiency. That’s a definite. Everything else I’m not 100% sure on. We need a physical therapist or a physiologist to enlighten us.

@ Rock – Science is funny. Ever watch Bill Nye?

Touche salesman. Thanks for the insight.

Doping? The use of PRP and APG as a tissue healing methodology has been around for over ten years – it just hasn’t gotten much press. I’ve been supplying a PRP procurement service for plastic, oral/maxillofacial and periodontal surgeons since 1996.

Here’s the deal, everyone’s blood is made of the same elemental components: red blood cells (RBCs), clotting factors, platelets, and plasma – the fluid in which the other components are transported throughout the body. Each component has its role: RBCs carry oxygen, clotting factors help us stop bleeding and platelets help us heal faster as well as help reduce bleeding. At an injury site, platelets begin the healing process by releasing special proteins, called growth factors, into the wound. Stimulated by these growth factors, cells begin to divide and multiply while, simultaneously, new blood vessels forge their way into the site. These new vessels will carry vital nutrients and oxygen to nourish the growing tissue whether bone, ligament, muscle or skin. Autologous platelet gel (APG) is a coagulum formed when a platelet-rich concentrate is encouraged to “gel” by the addition of a clotting agent, such as thrombin.

At the point of care, whole blood is removed from the patient in a method similar to a normal blood specimen collection. Next, the platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, is separated from the other components by centrifugation, and placed in the sterile field (The best PRP separator has automatic sensors to detect where the platelet pack is and when to extract it – the key to high concentration). The doctor then injects this PRP into an injury site or adds it to bone or skin graft as a tissue healing accelerant. In soft tissue wound care applications, PRP is encouraged to clot by the addition of thrombin, a common blood clotting agent. The APG is then placed on the wound or ulcer and covered with a dressing. Suspended in the resultant autologous platelet-gel (APG) is a concentrated supply of growth factors like platelet derived growth factor (PDGF), transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) – all of which are naturally found in everyone’s blood. These platelet-derived growth factors heal us even at normal levels. But 6, 8, 10 or even 14 times baseline, tissue regeration is accelerated.

I believe it will be the standard of care for many wounds and injuries, and PRP should not be associated with performance enhancers, steroids or cheating.

Jeff Soule
Dir of Operations
Con Cell Corp
Cell: 203-232-5962 – Off: 845-878-7711
j.soule@concellcorp.com