Performance enhancing drugs and DCS...

[Scubaroo]

All this recent kerfuffle in the Olympics with performance enhancing drugs got me thinking... any studies been done to examine the effects of such drugs which increase your blood's hemaglobin levels, and diving? Presumably an increased hemaglobin level would mean an increased oxygen level in your blood, what effect could this have on nitrogen levels etc?

Just wondering if it could have any possible applications in some form or other of scientific or commercial diving... regardless of any benefits I'm not about to start trying it!

 

[Chip]

I'm not a doctor, but I am a premed student and have a master's degree in molecular biology.

Increased hemoglobin (Hb) will not affect the physiology of nitrogen directly, as nitrogen does not bind to Hb but is soluble in the plasma and in the tissues.

I think that increasing Hb might not make a difference with O2 either, but of course, this is not actually known. However, it is interesting to speculate about what would happen to O2. Under normal atmospheric conditions and with normal hematocrit (number of red blood cells), almost all of the O2 is bound to Hb (Hb is saturated). Under hyperbaric conditions, there is an increase of soluble O2 with an increase in ambient pressure. So if you were to increase hematocrit, you would expect Hb to become saturated at a slightly higher concentration of O2. But as you increase ambient pressure, and consequently the O2 concentration, the change in hematocrit becomes increasingly negligible. The only practical difference might be a slight increased tolerance to oxygen toxicity, but then again, this has not been determined empirically, and one should never push O2 limits anyway.