Uno-X pro cyclists hospitalised due to carbon monoxide poisoning after team bonding session

In a grand old tradition - didn't people still dose with things like strychnine in the early days of cycle racing?

H. G. Wells wrote:

Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of a man.

Carbon monoxide inhalation can actually be performance-enhancing, by boosting erythrocyte production. Though, it will initially be performance-decreasing

Comments on websites can actually be stupid and not at all funny

It wasn't meant to be funny. It is a true statement. Carbon monoxide inhalation is a means to stimulate erythrocyte production, and thus increase red blood count and concentration ("haematocrit").

Carbon monoxide binds preferentially to RBCs over oxygen, and it stays bound. The immediate effect of carbon monoxide inhalation therefore is to /decrease/ the availability of oxygen carrying RBCs in the blood stream - an effect that will persist for up to a day. This decreases performance obviously. This decrease in oxygenated RBC availability, if maintained by repeated CO dosing over time, will lead to the body increasing its levels of EPO to stimulate erythrocyte production and increase the number of blood cells in circulation. Once RBC mass has been increased, ceasing CO dosing will then - within a day or so for the CO to be purged - leave the individual with an increased volume of oxygen carrying RBCs, and a commensurate increase in aerobic performance capacity - for a while thereafter.

I.e., repeated, low-dose, inhalation of carbon monoxide can be used to increase RBC mass, and increase performance, in a similar way as altitude does.

See, e.g.: https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2020/09000/chronic_exposure_...

That's fairly recent, but I've heard about this from sports scientists long before that, so it's been known about a while.

Carbon monoxide inhalation can be performance enhancing.

File under "Don't try this at home" me'thinks.

File under "Don't try this at home"

I can't see this catching on or becoming acceptable by doping authorities as a substitute for altitude training. The original riders not only inhaled a lot of CO, but all the other toxic gases you can imagine coming from lots of high-revving small engines, and were pretty ill. They were sent off for oxygen high pressure treatment, which isn't harmless itself, suggesting they had reached 25% or more poisoned haemoglobin- this is even worse than in the crap blood of smokers (the blood donor people don't even ask about whether donors are smokers). The intricate CO inhalation protocol in the research study pulsed the CO-Hb up to about 7% 5 times a day for 3 weeks to achieve about 5% more red cell haemoglobin. Lance's method is a lot easier- just a few bags, and screens on the windows of the bus!