Speaker 1: It's just before midnight on February twenty eighth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: The enhanced athletes are staying at a hotel in Abu
Speaker 1: Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. That's where they're spending
Speaker 1: the months leading up to the games training and taking
Speaker 1: their performance enhancing drugs. The first time the alarms go off,
Speaker 1: Megan Romano's up in her room with her girlfriend.
Speaker 2: It wasn't night when it started, like when shit hit
Speaker 2: the fan.
Speaker 3: It was definitely at night.
Speaker 2: You get like this alarm and it sounds like crazy loud.
Speaker 4: It's like Ray.
Speaker 1: Ray Ray Ben Proud and his girlfriend, Emily Barclay, she's
Speaker 1: also a swimmer with enhanced They just wrapped around in
Speaker 1: medical testing at a nearby hospital, just walked back into
Speaker 1: the hotel.
Speaker 5: Suddenly this really aggressive alarm goes off on off phone,
Speaker 5: and then two seconds later we hear these pops outside
Speaker 5: just outside a window, and we opened the curtains and
Speaker 5: there's these lines of smoke going up into this little
Speaker 5: ball of ball of smoke right in front of that window.
Speaker 5: So we checked the news and saw that UAE was
Speaker 5: you know, had been fired up by Iran.
Speaker 1: Earlier that day. The United States and Israel conducted their
Speaker 1: first round of military strikes against Iran. Hours later, Irun
Speaker 1: launched retaliatory missiles at various US allies in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: The Ministry of Defense of the UAE says the United
Speaker 4: Emirates was subjected today to a brazen attack with Iranian
Speaker 4: ballistic missiles.
Speaker 6: This is an unprecedented attack by Iran on what it
Speaker 6: says are US military targets across Gulf nations.
Speaker 5: So basically where I am when my hotel room is
Speaker 5: if you look out straight about ten out this way
Speaker 5: is the US Al Dafra base, which is where these
Speaker 5: rockets are heading to. And so we are literally just
Speaker 5: caught in the crossfires of whatever's going on. And then
Speaker 5: that's curious as we look out the window and we
Speaker 5: see these three rockets just launch from across the water here,
Speaker 5: and that sets the panic. And so at that point
Speaker 5: we get ourselves into bathroom, we hunker down for a bit,
Speaker 5: and we just ye, we let our bodies settle.
Speaker 2: I'm from Florida, so I've been through like crazy thunderstorms.
Speaker 2: It just sounds like the loudest thunder I think I've
Speaker 2: ever heard. We're like the windows were shat like shaking.
Speaker 2: It sounded like the missile like landed on my balcony.
Speaker 1: At least one of the enhanced athletes, Andregovov from Ukraine,
Speaker 1: he's got plenty of experience with war, so other athletes
Speaker 1: been included. They turn it him.
Speaker 5: We kind of stick Andre and we're just trusting what
Speaker 5: he says, and he kind of knows how to handle it.
Speaker 1: What was Andrea's like sort of advice to you.
Speaker 5: You know, finding the hard concrete walls and places away
Speaker 5: from windows, you know, no glass around you. He was
Speaker 5: basically scouting this hotel to find safe places. He was,
Speaker 5: you know, telling us to keep our passports in hand
Speaker 5: just in case of evacuations. And he gave us money,
Speaker 5: you know, just in case.
Speaker 1: Specifically, Andrea's handing out us dollars he knows in active
Speaker 1: war zones, as infrastructure collapses, digital transfers stop processing. Same
Speaker 1: goes for ATMs in situations like this, the more cash
Speaker 1: you got, the safer you are.
Speaker 2: I just hope it doesn't get worse, because like I'm
Speaker 2: getting woken up every night on the dot. I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is with Iran, but like they're like
Speaker 2: at four point thirty on the Dot and then like
Speaker 2: seven and the boom are getting louder. And that's the
Speaker 2: thing too, is like if we're on these enhancements, like
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter if we're on enhancements. If we're not
Speaker 2: getting proper sleep.
Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts, this is superhuman. I'm Chris
Speaker 1: guy Amali. A month before those first missile strikes, I
Speaker 1: visited the enhanced athletes in Abu Dhabi. They're staying at
Speaker 1: what used to be a recreational military base for the
Speaker 1: UAE Armed Forces. These days, it's a luxury hotel called
Speaker 1: Earth without the A. There's a big fancy gym, but
Speaker 1: the enhanced weightlifting team is working out in a small
Speaker 1: converted weighting area where weight stations are set up. I
Speaker 1: think they're listening to Bad Bunny right now. And for
Speaker 1: the swimmers, of course a pool. Andre and Ben are
Speaker 1: in the water yacking at the other side of the pool.
Speaker 1: Ben looks it's much bigger than last time. There's a
Speaker 1: huge fancy cafeteria here, also a private beach, paddle courts,
Speaker 1: and an enormous soccer pitch. The guy who designed Earth
Speaker 1: wanted it to resemble a falcon in flight, and weirdly,
Speaker 1: it absolutely does. Most of the Enhanced team was living
Speaker 1: and training there, just a twenty minute drive from the
Speaker 1: medical facility where the athletes got their drugs and were
Speaker 1: subsequently studied. One of the chief doctors overseeing the Enhanced
Speaker 1: study is doctor Guido Pilis, a cardiologist. He told me,
Speaker 1: because athletes using performance enhancing drugs are almost always doing
Speaker 1: so in secrecy, that means no doctors, no help determining
Speaker 1: the right dosages, no guidance on how long to use them.
Speaker 1: For what he and Enhanced are seeking. It's like the
Speaker 1: goldilocks of these particular drugs, the perfect dosage that delivers
Speaker 1: tangible results without the long term negative consequences. Why is
Speaker 1: this necessary, here's doctor Pelis.
Speaker 7: Firstly, it's because we have very little data. Although everyone
Speaker 7: has an opinion about enhancement and athletes, this is not
Speaker 7: fully backed up as signs, I have to say. But
Speaker 7: if you compare what we have in science to other areas,
Speaker 7: then we haven't done our homework. And that's why really welcome.
Speaker 1: I take his point. Why he'd want to actually study
Speaker 1: how steroids work on relatively healthy populations if there's a
Speaker 1: way to use them effectively and safely. We should know that,
Speaker 1: and if there is an effective dosage for healthy people,
Speaker 1: we should know what that is.
Speaker 7: Drug sit will be taken.
Speaker 1: What I keep thinking about, what about the athletes competing
Speaker 1: in the Enhanced Games who aren't participating in the study.
Speaker 1: As a rule, enhance isn't making anyone stick to a
Speaker 1: particular drug regimen, Nor are they testing for which drugs
Speaker 1: non participating athletes may have taken. So are the athletes
Speaker 1: who are outside of it? Are you guys testing them
Speaker 1: too for the stuff that's banned? No, we're not, Max
Speaker 1: Martin again, CEO of Enhanced.
Speaker 8: Look of the approaches. The law is the law, and
Speaker 8: adults are our adults, and within what the law is
Speaker 8: an adults should be able to take a decision for
Speaker 8: themselves and what they want and want not to do.
Speaker 8: We are not the law enforcement agency. So similarly to
Speaker 8: whether we could test them whether they are taking a
Speaker 8: substance like tremblone, where do you draw the line? Right,
Speaker 8: We are not going to test the athletes and whether
Speaker 8: they're taking cocaine, whether they're taking you know, whether they're
Speaker 8: smoking weed in a jurisdiction, whether they're not supposed to
Speaker 8: be smoking weed. That is the law enforcement job. That's
Speaker 8: not our job.
Speaker 1: There's something here that makes me feel I don't know nervous.
Speaker 1: Enhances working so hard to assure us that their studies
Speaker 1: the drugs are prescribing that it's all safe. But theoretically
Speaker 1: anyone competing in the games could be taking anything they want,
Speaker 1: whether or not they're participating in the study. Basically, enhances
Speaker 1: relying on an honor system.
Speaker 8: What we are looking to do is have the athletes
Speaker 8: disclose to us and represent to us that truthfully what
Speaker 8: they're taking, and then with testing them to figure out
Speaker 8: whether they're healthy and safe to compete so that there's
Speaker 8: no abuse of legal substances, right, because even if a
Speaker 8: substance is legal, you can still abuse it to make
Speaker 8: it unhealthy.
Speaker 1: Something you might be wondering, why is Abu Dhabi where
Speaker 1: enhancedent their athletes Anyway, I asked Max that very question
Speaker 1: to start. The laws and regulations about the drug part
Speaker 1: of all of this are a lot more laxed there
Speaker 1: compared to the US. Plus, according to Enhanced, Abu Dhabi
Speaker 1: is particularly interested in this specific study identifying the pros
Speaker 1: and cons of performance enhancing drugs. The UAE tends to
Speaker 1: do this, spend a lot of money on or host big,
Speaker 1: splashy sporting events. They own more than one pro soccer team,
Speaker 1: and they spend billions on huge turnout sports like UFC
Speaker 1: and Formula one. The general vibe of what Enhances up
Speaker 1: to totally in their bag of tricks. Labs of doctors
Speaker 1: are set up in Abu Dhabi to consult directly with
Speaker 1: athletes under their drug use and track whatever side effects
Speaker 1: they experience.
Speaker 8: We look at imagings of their brains, their organs, their heart,
Speaker 8: We do testing of their blood. They's aliva, the urine,
Speaker 8: and all of these things impact what kind of recommendation
Speaker 8: athletes gets for a protocols.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder the protocols, what enhance calls, each regimen
Speaker 1: for their athletes, everyone's specific cocktail of drugs. Max says.
Speaker 1: The point of collecting all this data is to help enhance,
Speaker 1: package safe, and affect the programs for everyone else. The
Speaker 1: people actually buy their performance enhancing drugs from them, and
Speaker 1: what specifically are the drugs Megan Ben and the rest
Speaker 1: of the Enhanced crew are using. That's a million dollar question,
Speaker 1: or maybe even the billion dollar question considering who Enhanced
Speaker 1: investors are to be sure. At first we were told
Speaker 1: no problem, we'd have total access to everything, the drugs, dosing,
Speaker 1: the types of needles, all of it. Over time though,
Speaker 1: they've gone bit more buttoned up. In fact, they've explicitly
Speaker 1: told the athletes they can't disclose what they're being given.
Speaker 1: What Max has said is they're not trying out anything
Speaker 1: new or experimental. Rather, they're working within the parameters of
Speaker 1: what's already considered a performance enhancing drug to figure out basically,
Speaker 1: what are the limits of what a person can take
Speaker 1: where the good the benefits outweigh the bad the side effects.
Speaker 1: He says, the drugs all fall into one of four
Speaker 1: main categories.
Speaker 8: One are anabolic steroids, which includes like testosterone. Then there
Speaker 8: are metabolgodulators, say for example, meldonium, which is a substance
Speaker 8: that helps you with your energy efficiency and improves your endurance.
Speaker 8: Then there are regulated peptides, so peptides that are already.
Speaker 1: Approved approved by the FDA he means, the Food and
Speaker 1: Drug Administration, not the ones that you.
Speaker 8: Know people are buying from China. And then last these
Speaker 8: stimulants like adoro and medefinite, etc.
Speaker 1: Okay, so a lot of drugs to help us wrap
Speaker 1: our heads around Max's four groups. My producer Sam calls
Speaker 1: up doctor Katie Rizzoni. She's in sports medicine and orthopedics,
Speaker 1: specifically focused on NCUBA athletes, so college athletes plus pro
Speaker 1: level and world champion athletes too. Max said, the first
Speaker 1: group of drugs are steroids, and so Sam starts with
Speaker 1: the basics.
Speaker 9: What is a steroid?
Speaker 6: Basically, a steroid is going to mimic hormonal pathways.
Speaker 7: In the body.
Speaker 1: Pretty quickly, the basics get a complicated, but doctor Rizzoni says, basically,
Speaker 1: it's lab made to sasterone.
Speaker 3: Got it?
Speaker 1: And what does it?
Speaker 9: What does it do to the the to the body.
Speaker 6: It's gonna make it easier to build muscle mass. Therefore
Speaker 6: you're going to be stronger. Were people using steroids in
Speaker 6: those days?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure, some used them, some didn't use I mean it's
Speaker 1: very hot always did you take for example? Steroid use
Speaker 1: has historically been common in the bodybuilding community. Back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, Arnold Schwarzenegger was grilled about steroids on
Speaker 1: David Letterman.
Speaker 5: Did you ever use them yourself?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, in addition to making you stronger, doctor Riizoni says,
Speaker 1: steroid seem to quicken recovery.
Speaker 6: As an athlete, you could train longer and harder and
Speaker 6: that damage right. Anytime you train, you break muscle, you
Speaker 6: chair muscle, you break bone, and so it helps those
Speaker 6: to heal back faster.
Speaker 1: And with millions of dollars in sponsorships, salaries, and ticket
Speaker 1: sales on the line, the faster athletes swing back, the better.
Speaker 1: So that's drug group one. Drug two on Max's list
Speaker 1: metabolic modulators, basically drugs that change how your body makes, uses,
Speaker 1: or saves energy. Usually they're prescribed for people with heart
Speaker 1: problems or diabetes.
Speaker 6: So like athletes will give themselves insolent, like what a
Speaker 6: diabetic would you, because you're trying to get sugar or
Speaker 6: glucose into your cells so that your cells can have
Speaker 6: more fuel to do things.
Speaker 1: Another group on Max's list stimulants. These you probably.
Speaker 6: Know things like adderall retolin. Caffeine is a stimulant.
Speaker 1: Stimulants raise your heart and breathing rate. They make you
Speaker 1: feel more alert, more confident.
Speaker 6: You know, there's a reason that in the eighties there
Speaker 6: was a lot of athletes ahead of cocaine.
Speaker 4: Problem.
Speaker 6: It's a stimulant, you know, I mean it probably does
Speaker 6: enhance performance. It helps with attention, it helps with energy.
Speaker 6: You probably feel less pain. You're able to push through
Speaker 6: pain barriers, or you will probably push your mental barriers.
Speaker 1: Famous example soccer player Diego Maradona, who at the nineteen
Speaker 1: to eighty four World Cup tests a positive for, among
Speaker 1: other things, phaedrin.
Speaker 5: But subsequently was revealed to be a cocktail of five
Speaker 5: different fan substances.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, Maradona denied it to the end.
Speaker 4: I have given fee for the opportunity to reconsider their
Speaker 4: decision because I believe it to be totally unjust. I
Speaker 4: have suffered a lot on my own and I promised
Speaker 4: my daughters I would not cry. I'm not crying.
Speaker 1: And finally, peptides, the kinds of peptides the athletes are using.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to help with recovery and hormone production. We
Speaker 1: think we don't really know what they do, Doctor Katie Rizzoni.
Speaker 6: Again, peptides are kind of like they're made up of
Speaker 6: amino acids. Amino Acids are like the building blocks of proteins.
Speaker 6: You need proteins to get stronger, you need proteins for recovery.
Speaker 6: Proteins are essential to high performance, so theoretically they could
Speaker 6: be filling in deficiencies that could help with overall performance
Speaker 6: and elite athletes when they are training. Then I think
Speaker 6: that's why people are interested in them, but we don't well,
Speaker 6: we haven't proven that yet.
Speaker 1: The thing about peptides, doctor Rizzoni says, they're still pretty
Speaker 1: new on the performance enhancing scene. They're easy to get,
Speaker 1: but what they actually do, we're still working that part out.
Speaker 6: They probably have influence on inflammation, cell recovery, you know,
Speaker 6: muscle masks, so I don't know if they'd necessarily proven
Speaker 6: then in humans yet, but those theoretically could.
Speaker 1: Be the benefits either way. Most peptides are banned in
Speaker 1: conventional sport, in part because using them seems unfair against
Speaker 1: the spirit of sport, as IOC and WATA often say,
Speaker 1: but also because we really don't know how safe they are.
Speaker 1: After the war breaks out, our communication with the enhanced
Speaker 1: athletes training in Abu Dhabi grows understandably sporadic. But what
Speaker 1: does that mean about how it's going over there. I'm
Speaker 1: picturing chaos conson alerts, the rumbles and booms of an
Speaker 1: in missiles.
Speaker 9: But after the initial shock wears off, things for Team
Speaker 9: Enhanced grow a bit well boring. Originally, the athlete's enhancement
Speaker 9: protocol was meant to last for about twelve weeks. Now
Speaker 9: that day keeps getting pushed back. No one knows exactly why,
Speaker 9: and the athletes are growing antsy. Something's up, Megan Romano again.
Speaker 2: And no one's really sure like what it is. We
Speaker 2: don't know if we're waiting on a signature. And I
Speaker 2: don't even think it's the missiles or the war that's
Speaker 2: like lagging. I think is Oh, you don't think so?
Speaker 3: That was my theory.
Speaker 2: I don't think so, because before the war even started,
Speaker 2: we were still waiting on something, Like I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's just like a lot of parts that we don't
Speaker 2: know about that's happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 9: Megan says. The athletes keep thinking they're about to officially
Speaker 9: begin their drug protocols, but when that day comes, they
Speaker 9: just don't.
Speaker 2: So when they tell us now, like you're getting them
Speaker 2: on Friday, you're getting them on Monday, I don't even
Speaker 2: believe it. I'm like, okay, until like the needle's like
Speaker 2: end my ass, Like I don't believe shit.
Speaker 9: Later, in a press conference, CEO Max Martin says the
Speaker 9: delays are because of the war in part, but also
Speaker 9: he says there's just everyday bureaucracy stuff to deal with,
Speaker 9: too red tape for the athletes, though it feels like
Speaker 9: it's taking forever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, with all the frustration that was going on in
Speaker 5: terms of delays and waiting and you know, uncertainty, we
Speaker 5: were so focused on those emotions rather than the emotions
Speaker 5: of what we're about to get into. So it kind
Speaker 5: of just it came as a big shock in terms
Speaker 5: of it came really quickly.
Speaker 1: On March twelve, about two weeks after those drone strikes
Speaker 1: you heard earlier in the episode, and just eight weeks
Speaker 1: before they needed to be back in the United States,
Speaker 1: the athletes find out that for real, this time, they're
Speaker 1: going to start the protocol. The next morning, it hit
Speaker 1: me like a train.
Speaker 5: I was like, shit, this is this is happening.
Speaker 1: Ben Prowd's feeling anxious. His girlfriend Emily is already asleep,
Speaker 1: which means it's probably too late to reach out to
Speaker 1: any of his other teammates too.
Speaker 5: And there was no one will wait for me to
Speaker 5: talk to. I just I called my brother and I
Speaker 5: was like, Oliver, I'm terrified.
Speaker 1: Oliver reminds him, it's okay. They've already talked this over,
Speaker 1: prepared for this exact feeling.
Speaker 5: You know, I was always going to feel like this.
Speaker 5: You know, to the world, I retired in September, tenth
Speaker 5: of September. But to me, I don't retire until take
Speaker 5: that injection. In reality, nothing has stopping me from turning
Speaker 5: back and going back to my normal life until I
Speaker 5: start the protocol, you know, until I inject myself as
Speaker 5: something that I'm not allowed to inject with.
Speaker 1: The athletes spend the next day in a waiting room
Speaker 1: at the hospital. One by one, they're caught up by name,
Speaker 1: taken to another room.
Speaker 5: You go in, and about ten minutes later you come
Speaker 5: back and you are an enhanced athlete. And so for
Speaker 5: every person who came back with I'd be like a
Speaker 5: big cheer and like, you know, congratations, like a big moment.
Speaker 5: Most of them were like buzzing and excited and like,
Speaker 5: you know, this is you know, officially enhanced. You know,
Speaker 5: that was the thing that everyone was saying.
Speaker 1: Ben, though he's not buzzing. For him, this moment is
Speaker 1: goodbye to his entire career in clean sport.
Speaker 5: You know, I just wanted to be, you know, not
Speaker 5: hanging my head in Shane. But I was like, I
Speaker 5: just I just want to be alone with Emily, and
Speaker 5: you know, I just want to Yeah, the emotions at
Speaker 5: the time, but just got the better of me.
Speaker 1: I want to stop here for a second and explain something.
Speaker 1: We don't actually know what any of the enhanced athletes
Speaker 1: are taking the details of their protocol. Sure, we know
Speaker 1: the four categories of drugs, but that's it. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I went to Abu Dhabi in the first
Speaker 1: place was to spend time in the room where it happens.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be with the athletes when they found
Speaker 1: out the ingredients for their individual cocktails, the specific list
Speaker 1: of drugs. I wanted to see the injections, watch how
Speaker 1: it worked. And for months en Hans said, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1: But just before I left, Enhance walked that back in
Speaker 1: an email there comms.
Speaker 9: The rector wrote, due to health privacy laws and ordinances
Speaker 9: in both the UAE and hipparegulations in the US, no
Speaker 9: journalist or camera is permitted in with athletes during their
Speaker 9: doctor consultations or if they choose enhancements. Sorry, that's entirely
Speaker 9: off limits.
Speaker 1: Later, the athletes were instructed by enhanced not to discuss
Speaker 1: any specifics with the press either. Megan says the new
Speaker 1: rules make it harder to talk about what drugs she's
Speaker 1: doing in Abu Dhabi. She wishes she could at least
Speaker 1: say the names of the drug she's taking.
Speaker 2: Not dosages, but at least like what we're taking, because
Speaker 2: it's just easier for us as athletes, because you know,
Speaker 2: that's what everyone wants to know. Of course, So I
Speaker 2: don't know at some point if we're going to be
Speaker 2: able to talk about it, but I guess like that
Speaker 2: kind of shifted recently, But.
Speaker 9: That doesn't stop us from asking anyway. Is it like
Speaker 9: going to be like an oral injected, like you know what,
Speaker 9: Like how are you going to have to take it?
Speaker 2: I feel like if I say it's going to give
Speaker 2: it away. One one is tour wait to are injected.
Speaker 2: One's a gel.
Speaker 5: I'm on about three different substances. One one has taken
Speaker 5: every single day. It's this injection which you do yourself.
Speaker 5: And typically I'll do that, you know, evenings, like after
Speaker 5: the school I'm going to do it, and it's very quick.
Speaker 5: It takes you know, two minutes to do the whole process.
Speaker 5: And then there's another injection, which we're gonna do once
Speaker 5: a week, which really stings. I really couldn't do it
Speaker 5: last week. I couldn't get a needle in. It's tiny,
Speaker 5: it's like a like an instant injection, but I just
Speaker 5: couldn't get it under my skin. I was sweating. My
Speaker 5: hands were like shining from sweat. I was so nervous.
Speaker 5: So what so scared. Once you get over the pinprick,
Speaker 5: you don't feel that at all, but the mind just
Speaker 5: plays tricks on you. When you have to look at
Speaker 5: this needle and look at it again, you kind of
Speaker 5: freak out a bit.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, in April, Ben tells us he's
Speaker 1: already feeling the effects. What's the biggest change you've felt
Speaker 1: in your body since beginning the protocol? Has there been
Speaker 1: anything that surprised you.
Speaker 5: I think it's the the very sudden increase in muscle mass.
Speaker 5: So the first two weeks you're kind of just waiting,
Speaker 5: nothing's changing, And then we came back into the water,
Speaker 5: and then suddenly everyone's looking incredible, Like abs are popping,
Speaker 5: chests fall, like bicelets are big, and that came from
Speaker 5: very little work. You know, I have cut down significantly
Speaker 5: the amount of work I'm doing in the gym purely
Speaker 5: because I'm scared to get too muscly, and I reduced
Speaker 5: it once. Still saw a huge gain in muscle mass,
Speaker 5: and so I've reduced it again just to try and
Speaker 5: maintain the current stateum in. It makes things feel easier
Speaker 5: easy in training, However, there is a definite irritability, so
Speaker 5: the emotions are much higher. It's like you're angry, like
Speaker 5: like you're waiting for food and it's not coming. You're
Speaker 5: just like just agitated.
Speaker 1: The testing being done in this study it definitely scratches
Speaker 1: an itch, especially for someone like Ben who remember keeps
Speaker 1: some meticulous spreadsheets of data on his body, his times
Speaker 1: every day, how each part of his body performs compared
Speaker 1: to yesterday and the day before that. What kind of
Speaker 1: changes have you seen in your like physiology based on
Speaker 1: all this analysis that you're getting.
Speaker 5: I think I'm out to say so. My testosterone score
Speaker 5: has gone from about four hundred, four hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: to twelve hundred and ten, so it's almost tripled in
Speaker 5: a few weeks, and twelve hundred is the upper limit
Speaker 5: not upper limit. Upper threshold of what they see is
Speaker 5: the range.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, A big point of this study,
Speaker 1: according to Enhanced, is to try and collect good, real
Speaker 1: data on these exact side effects. And of course, it
Speaker 1: is true that this usage of performance enhancing drugs isn't
Speaker 1: very well studied. Most of what science and medicine understands
Speaker 1: about these drugs is based on studies done on p
Speaker 1: people who have already abused them. What Enhanced wants to
Speaker 1: know what happens when folks take those same drugs safely
Speaker 1: in controlled, moderated dosages. I'm going to take off my
Speaker 1: journalism hat for a second and replace it with my
Speaker 1: normal dude hat, because remember, I'm someone who takes performance
Speaker 1: enhancing drugs literally. I take stuff that Enhanced also sells
Speaker 1: on their website because I'm a busy dad who just
Speaker 1: wants to get through each day. Remember what Max Martin
Speaker 1: said about who these enhancements are meant for.
Speaker 3: Am I twenty five years old and I'm training for
Speaker 3: a marathon or a sixty five years old looking to
Speaker 3: have more energy to take my grandkids to the playground
Speaker 3: and play with them. Enhancements can have me achieve both.
Speaker 1: The thing is all any of us have in common
Speaker 1: with someone like Ben Proud is that we're all on
Speaker 1: performance enhancing drugs. That's it. Certainly none of us are
Speaker 1: elite athletes trying to break a world record.
Speaker 9: We ran enhanced study by six medical professionals, including a neurologist,
Speaker 9: general practitioners, and a sports medicine doctor. Their biggest concerns
Speaker 9: were about the independence of the study. Basically, they said,
Speaker 9: if enhanced can get rich selling the same drugs are studying,
Speaker 9: doesn't that jeopardize their research? How do we know they're
Speaker 9: not overlooking purposefully or not true red flags? And these
Speaker 9: particular test subjects some of the best athletes in the world,
Speaker 9: how representative can they really be of everyday consumers, people
Speaker 9: like me, Chris or the hypothetical twenty five year olds
Speaker 9: and sixty five year olds.
Speaker 7: You're gonna do steroids that you're gonna do one cycle,
Speaker 7: you're gonna like it.
Speaker 9: One doctor we spoke with Thomas O'Connor. He's most skeptical
Speaker 9: of enhance confidence and consumers that they'd actually take these
Speaker 9: drugs and moderation.
Speaker 6: I don't care if you're a top guy, your regular
Speaker 6: accountant guy running McDonald's I don't care what you are.
Speaker 6: You're gonna like it. You're gonna want to do more
Speaker 6: and more and more.
Speaker 4: You're never gonna do one cycle never doesn't work that way.
Speaker 9: Something else about doctor O'Connor, he has a history of
Speaker 9: abusing steroids himself, and he's very open about it, meaning
Speaker 9: he would know.
Speaker 8: What happens is men take steroids.
Speaker 4: They take a little bit, like they always say they're
Speaker 4: going to do this minimal dose.
Speaker 3: That's bullshit right there, that's one hundred percent bullshit.
Speaker 9: We want to hear from those men, those people themselves,
Speaker 9: the twenty five and sixty five year olds, the normy's
Speaker 9: already taking the kinds of drugs enhanced to selling. How
Speaker 9: prone are they at a planing it's safe. How much
Speaker 9: does safety factor into their decision making at all? That's
Speaker 9: next time on Superhuman.
Speaker 1: Superhuman is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The series is reported and co hosted by Sam Egan.
Speaker 1: Dina Mesizi's Medal is our senior producer. Production support from
Speaker 1: Dara Luk Potts, Edited by Kate Osborne, Editorial consulting by
Speaker 1: Adiza Egan. Original composition by Hannis Brown, mixing by Eric
Speaker 1: Maszi's Menal, reported and hosted by me Chris guy Amali
Speaker 1: from Kaleidoscope. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Ozwa Loshin,
Speaker 1: Mangeshati Kador and Kosislinos. Julia Nutter is the head of
Speaker 1: Studio for Kaleidoscope and From My Heart. Our executive produces
Speaker 1: are Katrina Norval and Nikki Etor. If you like what
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