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Sport nutritionist Eleanor Jones explains to 5 live Breakfast's Clare McDonnell how blood doping works and why it can help athletes.

"Blood doping is one of the methods athletes might use to increase their ability to transport oxygen. So if you're involved in endurance sports like long distance running or cycling, if you carry more oxygen you can run faster".

"It works like giving blood, except that after you've replaced that donation, naturally in your body, you then reinfuse the blood that you removed originally, so you might have 110% of your normal blood volume".

Another method of manipulating blood is to use a hormone called Erythropoietin or EPO: "EPO is a naturally found hormone, but this is just a synthetic version of it, so you can take an essentially supraphysiological dose to increase your body's response to it".

This clip is from Breakfast Monday 3 August 2015.