Years ago, I remember seeing a parody on what to expect in future Olympic athletes. There were cartoon drawings of swimmers with webbed feet and high jumpers with gigantic legs. We all had a good chuckle over this article. Well here we are, it is 2010, and we are getting ready for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. What are we reading about in the media? Warnings about gene doping in Olympic athletes.

I’ve already blogged about the use of epigenetics and nutrigenomics to turn on your horse.

In summary:

• analysis of a drop of blood from your horse
• determination which SNP’s are turned off (or on)
• addition of appropriate nutritional supplements to horse diet
• horse is now the best it can be

Is this cheating? Is it cheating if the same techniques are used by the Olympic athletes? What are they looking for in Vancouver? Not detected at the Beijing Olympics, but certainly looked for: an athlete has a harmless virus injected into the muscle which acts as a vector to turn on the gene to make erythropoietin. Ultimately, more oxygen is then delivered to the muscles and the performance is enhanced. I won’t provide links, but I found that it is not at all difficult to find sellers of these products online.

I also read that the World Anti-Doping Authority is trying to determine the expression of all 25,000 of the human body's genes. A major category of their ongoing research is Gene and Cellular Technologies as applied to Sports. The Gene Doping panel will be meeting on February 12 in Montreal to discuss these issues.

According to a National Geographic article, “To catch gene dopers, sports authorities are considering new testing methods based on looking for changes in cheaters' gene expression and cellular proteins.” I have to wonder what exactly they mean by changes in gene expression. Obviously already Olympic athletes work on their fitness and flexibility through enhanced training. As a contributor to the book “Come Together” published by OCO88, I noted that studies indicated that elite male skiers consumed 70 mL/min oxygen compared to the average novice consuming 500 mL/min. Is this change due to training alone? Does the training lead to epigenetic changes? I am certain that the elite athletes are much more cautious with their diets than the novices. I am sure that every Olympic team has nutritionists who use the most recent nutritional research to advise the athletes. Will these diets lead to epigenetic changes? Will these changes be detectable? What if the nutritionist uses personalized nutrition? And what if the nutritionist uses the genetic knowledge about the athlete to prescribe a personalized diet? Is this not a form of nutrigenomics?

Apparently, the International Olympic Committee is hanging on to the Olympians' genetic material for eight years. They are doing this until the detection methods catch up with what they think are current doping techniques. That is longer than we need to keep receipts for our income tax! I’m glad I am not on the Gene Doping Panel. They definitely have their work cut out for them.