"EPO doesn't enhance athletic performance". Please critique this new study.

I can't find the study itself, which is published in the Lancet, but here is one paper's summary of it,, and here is a fuller description of the study. There have been 5 or 6 previous studies which have come to different conclusions.

They raise the intriguing possibility that Lance Armstrong's drug of choice may have given him no benefit, other than psychological.

Quote:

In the first study of its kind, scientists challenged a group of 48 cyclists to tackle a series of challenges, including the infamous Mont Ventoux ascent, which often forms part of the Tour. Half had been given eight weekly injections of EPO, a drug that promotes red blood cell production with the aim of increasing delivery of oxygen to the muscles, while the other half took a dummy. But after the gruelling 21.5km climb - which was preceded by a 110km cycle for good measure - the average results of the two groups showed no difference whatsoever.

Quote:

For well-trained non-professional cyclists, the performance enhancing drug rHuEPO (recombinant human erythropoietin) appears to have a small effect on high intensity laboratory cycling tests, but the performance enhancing effects were mostly undetectable in a laboratory time trial test and an endurance road-race up Mont Ventoux (France), according to a new study.

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