Dr Martin Chandler and Professor Ian Boardley: Experts voices concerns on the risks associated with the Enhanced Games

Leading UK experts are warning of the health risks facing athletes training for the Enhanced Games. 

This week, it was announced the first ‘Enhanced Games’ will take place as a four-day event in Las Vegas next May. 

The event endorses the use of performance enhancing drugs - with organisers aiming to unlock a new level of 'superhuman performance'.

Dr Martin Chandler and Professor Ian Boardley are leading experts in the field - and they've released new research examining the potential risks.

"There isn't the evidence base to put safety measures in place so we can monitor things - but most of the evidence that's been generated around the use of these substances is that therapeutic doses are not these sort of physiological doses that they're proposing to use."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks atb Leading.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
UK experts are warning of the health risks facing athletes
training for the Enhanced Games. This week, it was announced
the first Enhanced Games will take place as a four
day event in Las Vegas next May. The event endorses
the use of performance enhancing drugs, with organizers aiming to
unlock a new level of superhuman performance. So are these

(00:35):
games sacrificing human health for the sake of entertainment? Doctor
Martin Chandler and Professor m Woodley are leading experts in
this area and have just released new research and they
both join me now from the UK. Thank you so much.
Good morning, Good mine Mardin. If Martin, if I can
start with you, what are your thoughts on the concept

(00:56):
of these games? What do you make of it?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's a particular new idea, So this is born out
of multiple different papers that have suggested.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
This over the years.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
They've been kind of academics that have supported the idea
for quite some time, so it's not a lot of
the particularly novel idea. The only thing that's different now
is they've got the funding to actually try and push
it through, and they've got funding from millionaires that are
quite heavily invested in biotech and that longevity kind of
lifestyle thing that's coming through.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
So in the organizers of this event, so that they're
ensuring that ensuring athlete safety and measures will be in
place to make sure these substances can be safely taken
under medical supervision. In your experience, is that possible.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Now?

Speaker 5 (01:50):
I think one of the things that we took exception
to in the purpose that we were is that there
isn't the evidence base to put safety measures in place
so you can monitor certain things.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
But most of the evidence that's been.

Speaker 5 (02:05):
Generated around the use of these substances at therapeutic doses,
not this sort of super physiological doses that they'll be
using in other proposing to using the games.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
So we've been told in it's not necessarily the substance,
it's the way you use it or misuse it that
makes it dangerous. How do you respond to a statement
like that.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
Well, I think they're trying to sort of make it
sound as though there is a way that you can
do this safely, and I think that's one of the
more dangerous messages but actually when you hear some of
the accounts from the people involved in the combination substances
that they're using, some of them are experimental substances once
that we don't have any evidence base for. So it

(02:49):
seems like the safety, their so called safety expected saying
one thing, but it's not corresponding to what the athletes
are actually saying they're doing in terms of the regime
of substances they're taking.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
So, Matt and you recently released a paper outlining the
health risks, what are the main in health concerns and
the risk is associated with these drugs, So we focused
on three.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
There's a whole range of potential side effects from the drugs,
and you know, there's a wide range of different drugs here,
anabolic steroids, peptide hormones, whole bunch of things, So there's
a whole bunch of stuff that could be going on.
But we focus on three cardiovascular function, reproductive function, and
cognitive function because there is growing evidence to show that

(03:34):
these in these three areas. Anabolic steroids in particular can
have quite heavy adverse impacts, so for instance, enlargements of
the heart, stiffening of the heart wall, and then a
reduction in the heart's performance, essentially.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Reproductive function.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
We're seeing people who have ceased using anabolic steroids and
they've started trying to restart their natural testosterone production, which
stops when you're injecting, and a year after cessation of use,
they're still trying to get themselves going again. And in
some cases, even where they have restored natural test software

(04:17):
and production, all their hormone levels are back to normal
or their biomarkets appear to be back to normal, they
still lack libido, they still lack fertility. There are structural changes,
for instance, the testicles that we don't really understand why
it's happening like that. It's a bit of a lottery
and very very recent evidence around changes in brain structure,

(04:45):
and there is evidence previously that anabolics cell would use,
particularly long term use can impact things like working memory
and visio spatial memory and processing, so people just become
it becomes harder to actually problem solve. But now we're
starting to see that there is an acceleration in brain
aging actually from long term heavy ANTABT steroduce. But this

(05:11):
is very very new research, so there's a lot we
don't understand about it.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yet these aren't minor side effis. This isn't just a
little bit of nausea or something. Do people understand you
know that people well informed. Do you think these athletes
before they venture into the sort of use of substance.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
There's a lot of bro signs around it, and there's
a lot of If you look at the communities that
use it kind of recreationally, they have ways of mitigating
the obvious side effects and the other stuff gets brushed off.
But that's what human beings do, right. It's the same
thing that happens with alcohol use, same thing happens with cigarettes.
This is what even if we understand that there might

(05:55):
be serious side effects, if it's something we want to
do and the games are there, then we'll keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
I think those long term effis are really interesting in
you know, like if an athlete stops taking them, it's
not like their body is just going to sort of
readjust and go back to where it was. Is it
what you've discovered?

Speaker 5 (06:15):
Yeah, you know what we're seeing with some of the
most significant effects, such as the ones that we've been
talking about, we're seeing those from observational studies with athletes
that have maybe been taking substances at very high levels,
continuous use for ten twenty years, and these are structural
changes in the body that wouldn't and remodeling of the heart,

(06:35):
structural changes to the brain that are very unlikely to
be able to correct themselves after the period of time
that it's taken for them to actually take effect. And
I think that's when you look at the monitoring that
they're talking about for the Games, the very limited information
that we have, it's looking for very short term effects.

(06:57):
It's not looking for these long term effects, and we've
not seen evidence of any sort of long term tracking
to protect the health of these athletes long term.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
You've got an f like the Australian summer James Magnison
who seed you know, he's reported to us he feels
like he's eighteen again. Does that concern you not just
for athletes, but for the average person who's going, oh,
here's the silver bullet.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
The biggest concern for me with James Mack with what
James Magnuson has been saying about oh I feel eighteen again,
is the fact that some of the things that he
said are kind of being they're not really being highlighted.
So he talked to in one interview about how he
felt like his nervous system wasn't really catching up, and
that's quite a key issue because you know, anabotics starars

(07:43):
things don't don't supercharge your nervous system, and your nervous
system needs to catch up to your the rest of
your body when you're training hard. He talks about in
another interview, he talks about you need to be an
elite athlete if you want to hit that kind of
performance before you take those drugs. You're not going to

(08:03):
achieve it without being that level or already. So yeah,
I selling the idea that you can just become a
superhuman athlete without putting the work in. That's a really
dangerous message. And I don't think that. I think they're
downplaying some of the.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Aspects there, you know, you were. It's all just a
little intrigued to see how well they can potentially perform well.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
I think the interesting thing at the moment is when
you look at Magnuson, he's not actually performing that well.
So he's probably put on too much mass and that's
not working for his performance in that particular event.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
Swim in.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
You know, poyancy is so important and how he's sitting
in the water and where he's sitting in the water.
And when you look at the documentary they've put together,
the coach is actually saying that this isn't actually helping him.
But I think they're trying to sell to different audiences.
So they've got one athlete who's got really big and
so the esthetics and appearance is what they're trying to sell,

(09:09):
probably implicitly to that market. And then they've got another
one that's breaking world records, who's selling to a market
who are interested in performance. So I don't think it's
by accident that they've got one very large athlete and
then they've got to no one that is breaking world records,
because they're probably trying to sell to different market.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
My guess, Martin, does it consume you that there are
scientists and doctors involved in this competition? Do you think
there's an ethics issue here?

Speaker 4 (09:37):
Oh, there's absolutely an ethics issue here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Part of the reason why we don't have a lot
of DATSA around this, a lot of human days for
around this, is because some of the studies that you
really need to say this substance causes this at this dose,
for this period of time are quite unethical because we
know that they could cause severe adverse effects in some

(09:59):
people and no effects in other people. So but one
of their there's an article in the Economist, I think,
where somebody from the Enhanced Games from their medical team
has said, you know, we're looking at we'll be looking
for ethical approval down the line.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
For our five year follow up.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
You don't look for ethical approval when you've already started
giving people drugs. You look for ethical approval before you
start doing all that stuff. So there's there's some serious
issues here. I would hope that as you know, I
mean there's as an impressive roster of scientists, I would
hope that they would apply scientific rigor and that I
would hope that they would say, right, actually, you know what,
we've got to draw the line here, and that the

(10:44):
Enhanced Games would listen to that.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
The cynic in me isn't convinced.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Martin and Ian, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Very much appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Thank you very much for more from the Sunday session
with Francesca Rudgin. Listen live to news Talks. It'd be
from nine am Sunday or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,