I wrote about Lance Armstrong, the doping allegations against him, and his admission that he used performance-enhancing substances during his professional cycling career in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
While he and his teammates used a variety of banned substances, the one that gets the most attention is blood doping through transfusions and EPO. You can learn more about this process and how it improves performance in cycling and other endurance events from Wikipedia and, if you are motivated, a 2011 article in the journal Blood.
The evidence that Armstrong and his teammates engaged in an elaborate doping conspiracy is outlined in detail in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency “Reasoned Decision” report.
Dr Parr Says... 