Men’s Health: Built For Life

Inside Sport’s Doping Arms Race

Men’s Health: Built For Life

Show Notes

In this episode of Men’s Health: Built For Life, Andrew Tracey and Ben Shephard are joined by sports science writer James Witts, author of Dope: How Drugs Change Sport, for a deep dive into the murky world of performance-enhancing drugs.

From caffeine, creatine and tramadol to steroids, peptides, GLP-1 drugs, gene doping and the controversial Enhanced Games, James explains why the line between ‘clean’ and ‘cheating’ is far less clear than many of us think.

We get into the history of doping, how athletes beat drug tests, why recovery may be the real performance advantage, the rise of enhancement culture in gyms and on TikTok, and whether the future of sport could be faster, stronger – and much more pharmaceutical.

This is not just a conversation about elite athletes. It is a conversation about sport, health, risk, money, morality and how far we are willing to go in the pursuit of performance.

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