Enhanced Games

“The vast majority of AAS and PED users are not competitive elites, but rather comprise millions of amateur individuals driven by body image or recreational goals. Shockingly, the corporate business model of the “Enhanced Games” explicitly intends to use the data derived from these elite athletes to market and sell personalized protocols to the general public through consumer platforms. Indeed, through their newly launched commercial platform, “Live Enhanced,” the organization operates a direct-to-consumer infrastructure that provides the general public with access to optimization protocols and performance medications under the guise of clinical oversight. Promoting and enabling PED use on a global stage erodes decades of antidoping education and threatens to trigger an unmanageable public health epidemic of illicit substance abuse.⁸ Condoning PED use and celebrating those who accomplish otherwise unattainable athletic performance may lead to an underappreciation of attendant health risks and thereby set the stage for public health crisis of illicit PED use outside of professional sports. As a medical community, we must clarify that there is no “safe” protocol for the pharmacological transcendence of human biological limits. The pursuit of record-breaking performance through systemic doping poses a significant challenge to established standards of medical ethics, clinical practice, and public health. Cardiovascular professionals have a responsibility to look past the rhetoric of innovation and speak clearly to patients and the public about the risks of pharmacologic enhancement.“