Skepticism and Future Implications

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I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book Club you've ever heard with my podcast, Earsay, the Audible and I Heart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book Cub for your ears Listen to EarsSay, the Audible and I Heart Audio book Cub. On the Artartt Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Sonatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbs Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady,raron Judge, John Cena,haylen Brunson, Serena Williams and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. Eclusive merch, rare collectibles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, a full tailgate zone, and New York City's largest indoor FivA World Cup final watchatch party. Sonatics Fest is the world's number one sports fan festival. Get your tickets now and Beticspest d. com. 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These statements have not evaluated by the Foodrug addministation this product is not intend to diagnose treat prevent ase It's just before midnight on february twenty eighth, twenty twenty six The enhanced athletes are staying at a hotel in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates That's where they're speing the months leading up to the games training and taking their performance enhancing drugs The first time the alarms go off, Megan Romano's up in a room with her girlfriend It was at night when it started Like when shit hit the fan, it was definitely at night You get like this alarm and it sounds like crazy loud. It's like Ben Proud and his girlfriend Emily Barlay. she's also a swimmer with enhanced They just wrapped around a medical testing at a nearby hospital. justust walked back into the hotel Suddenly this really aggressive alarm goes off on our phone And then two seconds later we hear these pops outside just outside our window And we opened the curtains And there's these lines of smoke going up into this little ball of smoke rightight in front of that window. So we checked the news and saw that UAE was had been fired up by Iran Earlier that day, the United States and Israel conducted their first rounded military strikes against Iran Hours later, Iran launched retaliatory missiles at various U. S. allies in the Middle East. The Ministry of Defense of the UAE says The United Arab Emirates were subjected today to a brazen attack with Iranian ballistic missiles. This is an unprecedented attack by Iran on what it says are US military targets across Gulf nations Basically where I am where my hotel room is. If you look out straight ten twenty kilometers out this way is the US alldafra base. which is where these rockets are heading to And so we are literally just caught in the crossfires of whatever iss going on And then out of curiosity, we look out the window and we see these three rockets just launch from across the water here. And that sets the panic And so at that point we get ourselves into the bathroom, we hunk it down for a bit and we just let our bodies settle I'm from Florida so I've been through like crazy thunderstorms. It just sounds like The loudest thunder I think I've ever heard were like the windows were shatered like shaking. It sounded like the missile like landed on my balcony At least one of the Enhanced athletes Andreg Goverv from Ukraine plenty of experience with war So other athletes been included They turn to him. We kind of stick around Andre and we're just trust seeing what he says and he kind of knows how to handle it. What was Andre's like sort of advice to you? You know, finding the hard concrete walls places away from windows, you know, no glass around you He was basically scouting this hotel to find safe places. Uh, he was You know, telling us to keep our passports in hand just in case of evacuations. and he gave us money. Just in case Specifically, Andreres's handing out US dollars He knows inactive war zones as infrastructure collapses Digital transfers stop processing Same goes for ATMs In situations like this, the more cash you got The safer you are. I just hope it doesn't get worse. because like I'm getting woken up every night on the dot. I don't know what it is with Iran, but like they're like at four hundred thirty On the det and then like seven And the booms are getting louder. And that's the thing too is like if we're on these enhancements Like it doesn't matter If we're on enhancements, if we're not getting proper sleep From Kaleidoscope and IiHart podcast, This is superhuman I'm Chris Gy Amoi Sonanics Fest NYC returns to the Javit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aron Judge, John Cena, Jaylin Brunson, Serena Williams, and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. Eclusive merch, rare collectibles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, A full tailgate zone, and New York City's largest indndoor FIFA World Cup fininal watchatch party. Synatics Fest is the world's number one sports fan festival. G your tickets Betxpest d. com. That's betxpest. com Aing is real. And so are the benefits of adding vital proteins collagen peptides to your daily routine? Because around the age of thirty, your body needs backup to keep your collagen up to help support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. Available in the classic collllagen peptides, collollagen and protein shakes And new Vital Proteins Collaggeen spparkling Waters, so you can stay vital, stay you. Visit vitalproteins. com to learn more and where to buy. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Dug A admistration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treature or prevent any disease Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of EarsSay the Audible and IHart Audioobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary. Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science. and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. and it's like, okay, yo yeo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, No, at this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. There's places in this book deeply emotionally affected me And I left it on the mic. That's great 'cause it served the story. People will say like, oh my Godd, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and I heart audiobook club the R Heart Radio app or wherever youre get your podcast Summer is a gift It's the gift of days that last a little longer, a brighter state of mind So giveift yourself a new Kia at the Kia Summer Sticker sales event. Epecially tagged vehicles including the Sorrento, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nuro Hybrid. All backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty. So the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come. Kia Mment that inspires. Call eight hundred three three three four Kia for Details hosoafree event and seven hundred six twenty six to deala for warranty details J before those first missile strikes, I visited the enhanced athletes in Abu Dhabi. They're staying at what used to be a recreational military base for the UAE Armed Forces. These days, it's a luxury hotel called Earth. without the A. There's a big fancy gym. But the enhanced weightlifting team is working out in a small converted waiting area where weait stations are set up. I think they're listening to Bad Bunny right now. And for the swimmers, of course, a pool Andre and Ben are in the water. Yacking at the other side of the pool. Ben looks much bigger than last time There's a huge fancy cafeteria here Also a private beach, paddle courts and an enormous soccer pitch The guy who designed Earth wanted it to resemble a falcon in flight And weirdly, it absolutely does. Most of the enhanced team was living and training there Just a twenty minute drive from the medical facility where the athletes got their drugs and were subsequently studied One of the chief doctors overseeing the Enhanced study is Dr. Gido Pelis, a cardiologist He told me, becausecause athletes using performance enhancing drugs are almost always doing so in secrecy. That means no doctors, no help determining the right dosages, no guidance on how long to use them for What he and Anhance are seeking L the Goldilocks of these particular drugs perfect dosage that delivers tangible results without the long term negative consequences Why is this necessary Here's Dr. Peelis. Firstly, it's necessary because We have very little data although everyone has an opinion about enhancement in athletes This is not fully backed up as science, I have to say If you compare what we have in science to other areas, then we haven't done our homek And that's why really welcome I take his point Why he'd want to actually study how steroids work on relatively healthy populations If there's a way to use them effectively and safely, we should know that And if there is an effective dosage for healthy people We should know what that is What I keep thinking about What about the athletes competing in the enhanced games who aren't participating in the study As a rule, enhance isn't making anyone stick to a particular drug regimen nor are they testing for which drugs non participating athletes may have taken So are the athletes who are outside of it? Are you guys testing them too for the stuff that's banned No, we're not Max Martin again. CEO of ennanced. No Our general approach is the law is the law and adults are adults And within what the law is, an adult should be able to take a decision for themselves on what they want and want not to do We are not the law enforcement agency So similarly to whether we could test them whether they are taking a substance like Troubolone Where do you draw the line? right? We are not going to test the athletes on whether they're taking cocaine whether they're taking, you know whether they're smoking weed in a jurdiction where they're not supposed to be smoking weed That is the law enforcement job. That's not our job There's something here that makes me feel, I don't know Nervous En Hance is working so hard to assure us that their studies the drugs they're prescribing that it's all safe. Theoretically, anyone competing in the games could be taking anything they want whether or not they're participating in the study Basically, en Hhence is relying on an honor system What we are looking to do is have the athletes disc close to us and represent to us that it represented truthfully what they're taking And then we're testing them to figure out whether they're healthy and safe to compete so that there's no abuse of legal substances, right? Because even if a substance is legal, you can still abuse it to make it unhealthy somethingomething you might be wondering Why is Abu Dhabi where enhanance center athletes anyway? I asked Max that very question To start The laws and regulations about the drug part of all of this are a lot more lax there. compared to the US Plus, according to Enhanced, Abu Dhabi is particularly interested in this specific study identifying the pros and cons of performance enhancing drugs The UAE tends to do this spepend a lot of money on or host Big splashy sporting events They own more than one pro soccer team And they spend billions on huge turnout sports like UFC and Formula O. The general vibe of what enhances up to Totally in their bag of tricks Labs of doctors are set up in Abu Dhabi to consult directly with athletes, monitor their drug use, and track whatever side effects they experience we look at Imagings of their brains, their organs, their heart We do testing of their blood, their's saliva, the urine, and all of these things Iact What kind of recommendation an athlete gets for a protocols Just a reminder, the protocol is what enhance calls each regimen for their athletes Everyone's specific cocktail of drugs Max says the point of collecting all this data is to help enhance package safe and effective programs for everyone else The people actually buy the performance enhancing drugs from them And what specifically are the drugs Megan, Ben, and the rest of the enhanced crew are using That's a million dollar question Or maybe even the billion dollar question consonsidering who enhanced investors are To be sure, at first we were told no problem Total access to everything The drugs, dosing, the types of natals, all of it Over time, though, they've gotten a bit more buttoned up In fact, they've explicitly told the athletes they can't disclose what they're being given What Max has said is they're not trying out anything new or experimental Rather, they're working within the parameters of what's already considered a performance enhancing drug To figure out basically what are the limits of what a person can take where the good the benefits outweigh the bad The side effects He says the drugs all fall into one of four main categories One are anabolic steroids, which includes like testosterone Then there are metabolic modulators, say, for example, melldonium, which is a substance that helps you with your energy efficiency and improves your endurance Then there are regulated peptides So peptides that are already approved Approved by the FDA, he means the Food and Drug Administration. Not the ones you know people are buying from China, and then largely stimulants like Aerol Madafin, etcetera Okay, so a lot of drugs To help us wrap our heads around Max's four groups, my producer Sam calls up Dr. Katie Rizonei She's in sports medicine and orthopedics specifically focus on NCAA athletes So college athletes pllus pro level and world Champion athletes too. Max said the first group of drugs are steroids And so Sam starts with the basics What is a steroid. Basically a steroid is going to mimic. hormonal pathways in the Pretty quickly, the basics get a complicated. Dctor Rizoni says basically, it's lab made teststerone Got it. what does it do to the body? It's gonna make it easy to build muscle mass Therefore, you're going to be stronger Were people using steroids in those days? Oh sure. Some used them, some didn't use them. I it very hard. For example, steroid use has historically been common in the bodybuilding community Back in nineteen eighty five, Arnold Schwarzenegger was grilled about steroids on David Letterman. his b. Did you ever use them yourself? Oh, sure. Yeah. In addition to making you stronger, Dr. Rzonei says, steroids seem to quick in recovery. As an athlete, you could train longer and harder Damage, right? Antime you train, you break muscle, you tear muscle, you break bone And so it helps those to heal back faster And with millions of dollars in sponsorships, salaries, and ticket sales on the line The faster athletes swing back, the better So that's your group one Sug to on Max's list. Metabolic modulators. Basically drugs that change how your body makes, uses, or saves energy Usually they're prescribed for people with heart problems or diabetes. So like athletes will give themselves insulin, like what a diabetic would use because you're trying to get sugar or glucose into your cells so that your cells can have more fuel to do things Another group on Max's list Stimulants these you probably know. Things like Aderal, Ridlend U caaffeine is a stimulant Stimulants raise your heart and breathing rate They make you feel more alert confident. You know, there's a reason that in the eighties, there was a lot of athletes that had a cocaine problem. It's a stimulant. you know, I mean, it probably does enhance performance. It helps with attention, it helps with energy. You probably feel less pain You're able to push through pain barriers, you're able to probably push through mental barriers. Famous example soccer player Diego Maridona. who at the nineteen eighty four World Cup Test a positive for, among other things, a fedroom But subsequently, it was revealed to be a cocktail of five different fanned substances For what it's worth, Maradona denied it to the end. I have given FIFA the opportunity to reconsider their decision because I believe it to be totally unjust. I have suffered a lot on my own And I promised my daughters I would not cry DM me see I'm not cry And finally, ties The kinds of peptides the athletes are using They're supposed to help with recovery and hormone production We think We don't really know what they do. doctor Katie Rizonei again. Peptides are kind of like they're made up of amino acids. Amino acids are like the building blocks of proteins. You need proteins to get stronger. You need proteins for recovery. Proteins are essential to high performance. so theoretically they could be filling in deficiencies that could help with overall performance and elite athletes when they are training, then I think that's why people are interested in them. But we don't we haven't proven that yet. The thing about peeptides, Dr. Rizonei says, they're still pretty new on the performance enhancing scene. They're easy to get, but what they actually do We're still working that part out. They probably have influence on inflammation, cell recovery, you know muscle mass. I don't know if they've necessarily proven then in humans yet, but those theoretically could be the benefits Either way, most peptides are banned in conventional sports in part because using them seems unfair againainst the spirit of sport. As IO and W often say But also because we really don't know how safe they are Fanicspest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aaron Judge, John Cena, Jalen Brunson, Serena Williams and hundreds more. feeaturing more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. exclusive merch, rare collectibles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes. A full tailgate zone, and New York City's largest Indoorf FIFA World Cup fininal watchatch party. Fanaticsfest is the world's number one spports fan festival. Get your tickets now at fanaticspest dot com dot That's fanaticspest dot com d Aging is real, and so are the benefits of New Vital proteins Collagen spparkling W. Because around the age of thirty, your body needs backup to keep your collagen up. So get your daily glow up now in three fresh flavors, strawberry blossom, lemon lime, and blood orange Improved skin health in as little as thirty days thanks to collagen peptides? Cheers to that, so you can stay vital, stay you. Visit vitalproteins. com to learn more and where to buy. These not avail by admistration. This product is not intend to din st or prevent any disease Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of EarsSay the Audible and IHart Audioobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary. Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science. and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. and it's like, okay, yo yeo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, No, at this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. There's places in this book deeply emotionally affected me And I left it on the mic. That's great 'cause it served the story. People will say like, oh my Godd, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and I heart audiobook club the R Heart Radio app or wherever youre get your podcast Summer is a gift It's the gift of days that last a little longer, a brighter state of mind So giveift yourself a new Kia at the KIA Summer Sticker sales event, Eespecially tacked vehicles including the Sornto, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nuro Hybrid. All backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty. So the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come. Kia Movement that inspires Call eight hundred three thir three four Ka F details hostoafree event and seven hundred six twenty six to dealer for warranty details After the war breaks out, our communication with the enhanced athletes, training in Abu Dhabi grows understandably sporadic. But what does that mean about how it's going over there? I'm picturing chaos. Cstant alerts, the rumbles and booms of intercepted missiles But after the initial shock wears off Things for Team Ehance grow a bit Boring Originally, the athletees enhancement prrotocol was meant to last for about twelve weeks. Now, that day keeps getting pushed back No one knows exactly why and the athletes are going antsy Somethings Meghgan Romano again And no one's really sure like what it is. We don't know if we're waiting on a signature. And I don't even think it's the missiles or the war that's like lagging. I think Oh, you don't think so. That was my theory I don't think so because Before the war even started, we were still waiting on something Mm Like I don't know. There's just like a lot of parts that we don't know about that's happening behind the scenes Meghgan says, the athletes keep thinking they're about to officially begin their drug protocols But when that day comes, they just don't So when they tell us now like you're getting home Friday, you're getting them home on Monday, I don't even believe it. I'm like o. until like the needles like in my ass I don't believe shit Later in a press conference, CEO Max Martin says the delays are because of the war in part But also, he says there's just everyday bureaucracy stuff to deal with too. For the athletes, though, it feels like it's taking forever Yeah, with all the frustration that was going on in terms of delays and waiting You know, uncertainty We were so focused on those emotions rather than the emotions of what we're about to get into. so It kind of just It came as a big shock in terms. it came really quickly On march twelfth, twow weeks after those drone strikes you heard earlier in the episode And just eight weeks before they needed to be back in the United States The athletes find out that For real this time They're going to start the protocol The next morning It hit me like a train. I was like This is This is happening. Ben Prroud's feeling anxious His girlfriend, Emily is already asleep whichich means it's probably too late to reach out to any of his other teammates too. And there wass no one to wait for me to talk to I just I called my brother and I was like All of I'm terrified. Oliver reminds him It's okay They've already talked this over prepared for this exact feeling You know, I was always gonna to feel like this, you know So the world I retired in September tenth of September to me I don't retire to li take that injection In reality, nothing was stopping me from turning back and and going back to my normal life And so I start the protocol, you know until inject myself with something that I'm not allowed to inject with The athletes spend the next day in a waiting room at the hospital One by one, they're called up by name Taken to another room You go in and about ten minutes later you come back and you are an enhanced athlete And so for every person that came back it'd be like a big cheer and like, you know, congratulations, like a big moment Most of them were like buzzing and excited and like, you know, this is you know, officially enhancers, you know, that was the thing that Oone was saying Ben though, he's not buzzing For him, this moment is goodbye to his entire career in clean sport You know, I just wanted to be Not hang my head in shame but I was like I just I just want to be alone with Emily and, you know, Just want to yeah and The emotions at the time just got the better of me I want to stop here for a second and explain something We don't actually know what any of the enhanced athletes are taking, the details of their protocol. Sure, we know the four categories of drugs. But that's it One of the reasons I went to Abu Dhabi in the first place was to spend time in the room where it happens I wanted to be with the athletes when they found out the ingredients for their individual cocktails the specific list of drugs I wanted to see the injections Watch how it works And for months and Han said, Yeahah No problem. But just before I left, enhance walk that back In an email, the Cs d Rirector wrote Due to health privacy laws and ordinances in both the UAE and HIPA regulations in the U S No journalist or camera is permitted in with athletes during their doctor consultations or if they choose enhancements. Sorry That's entirely off limits Later, the athletes were instructed by enhanced not to discuss any specifics with the press either Meghgan says the new rules make it harder to talk about what jug she's doing in Abuog She wishes she could at least say the names of the drugs she's taking notot dosages, but at least like what we're taking becausecause it's just easier for us as athletes because you know that's what everyone wants to know. Of course So I don't know at some point if we're going to be able to talk about it, but I guess like that kind of shifted recently That doesn't stop us from asking anyw