Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Doping

Episode Date: August 18, 2016

We're continuing to celebrate the Summer Olympics by presenting all the weird, terrible, horrid way athletes have tried to cheat their way to winning over the years. From donkey hooves to guinea pig sperm, it's ... it's a weird one. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. I'm ready to welcome to Saul Bonesbones a rental tour of misguided medicine. I'm your coach Justin McAroy and I'm Sydney McAroy Hold on you're doing a

That's an Olympics music thing. Okay, that was pretty goodla-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la just for us here. That is actually why they're like, they're not playing that, you know. It's still your fish oh one, like all over. In Rio. Would know, I mean, like if people were watching the Olympics in Rio, they're not playing that music, are they? Are they? Are they? I mean, that's gotta just be in the last, right?

I don't think you would buy. I mean, I think it's their theme. I don't think you would buy. The Olympics theme? I don't think you would buy, like, okay, if you're the, I don't think you would buy like, okay, if you're the limit, I don't think you would buy an Olympic theme and be like, no, I don't think this channel aims to be just going to fly

internationally. I think it's probably for the world. I never, I'm taste so different. Maybe this is this is not the way to begin our podcast. Well, obviously, I'm talking about the Olympics. Um, that was the, that was the theme music to the Olympics. I guess. So I'm gonna buy the Justin Pop's orchestra, yes.

But we're continuing our Olympics coverage during the Olympics. Our own version of Olympics. Yeah, I don't know. We're not gonna tell you anything about the events or who's winning them or anything actually pertaining to the current Olympics that are happening. We want to talk about medical issues sort of surrounding the Olympics. Okay, so hopefully not. Yeah, with any luck. Give me an example.

Well, for example, how about some performance enhancing drugs? Absolutely. I thought we should talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I'm in. Now, let's hope that nobody's using these. Nobody's ever used any performance in hand or drug. Well, that's not true. No, they're a myth.

The Olympics have a long history, specifically the summer Olympics. Yeah, because nobody cares about the cheat and the winter Olympics, right? No, I don't know why. I just, a lot of the things that I want to talk about, I'm going to talk don't know why. I just, a lot of the things that I want to talk about, I'm going to talk about performance in Hansi drugs, and a lot of the things I'm going to talk about,

it was specifically mentioned, we're more popular in the summer Olympics in the winter Olympics, and then they even say like, in the winter Olympics, there's rarely any doping. I don't know why. Like it's too cold to bother. I think part of it is in the Olympics.

The winter Olympics, I feel, forget the expression chill. A lot of the events there are like, you stand at the top of a hill and wait. That's skiing. You stand on how the hill in the sled and that's Bob's sledding or to Bob and race. Now, you've watched these events before and you know they go down the hill at some point, right? Yeah, but that doesn't require any effort on their part. Grab it and take care of it.

So I'm saying, do you understand? It's just easy. You just chill out and wait. I would say that some of the winter Olympians would disagree. Let's see, I'll name all of them. There's the one where you ski and shoot stuff. That's half hard, I guess. Skating, okay, you got me there,

but that's all the winter Olympics. So. Right. Well, let's just focus on the summer one but that's all the winter Olympics. So. Right. Well, let's just focus on the summer ones since that's what's going on right now. Okay, got it. And, and let me clarify too, I want to talk about some performance enhancing drugs, some specifically using Olympics and then just in general in sports. You know, just people want to do well in all sports, I guess.

And this was inspired by John Boyce, who has done a really cool video on one particular use of performance enhancing drugs in the Olympics. Which Olympics? 1904 Olympics, specifically the marathon. It was a real debacle, right? Yes. And that kind of inspired me to look into some other crazy substances that athletes have used over time to try to boost their performance, similar to cupping that we talked about last week. If you haven't seen John's great video series, pretty good. It's, well, it's really good.

It's not just pretty good. And you can find it on YouTube or espionation.com, I believe. And I would highly recommend it, not just the one that I'm in. No, it's a great series. So we talked about a little bit of this too on the arsenic episode that arsenic has been used throughout history as a performance enhancing drug, but there's a lot of other substances

that we would think of traditionally as like dangerous or poisonous that have also. So I use the word doping a few minutes ago Right, the you know where the word doping comes from no, I mean, I know loosely what you mean by it, but right when I say doping I mean like using using some sort of performance enhancing drug It come probably from the Dutch word doop which is some sort of viscous opium juice and Dup, which is some sort of viscous opium juice. And that was the performance enhancing drug of choice for the ancient Greeks.

Oh, wow. In the Olympics. That's wild. Yes. So Dup and then Doping and there you go. Of course, now when we say it, we don't necessarily mean opium juice. We often don't. The ancient Greeks were fans of using this to perform better in sports, as well as eating a lot of meat was one of their tricks of the trade and drinking a lot of wine and then sometimes eating animal testicles.

You know, I saw a report on Vox.com. We're just going through all the Vox properties today, but I saw a report in there that Olympic athletes are actually getting a lot healthier with their diets, which is why I live if you think about the fact that they weren't healthy before, but there used to be a lot more like carboloding and calorie intake. And, but I guess athletes are going to a lot more diligent about their diets, not and not eating a lot of animal testicles. I don't know how many, fewer. A few years on.

They're definitely cutting back on animal testicles. You got to live, right? It was, in the third century in Greece, it was common for Olympic competitors to use shrumes as in magic mushrooms. What? Psychedelic shrumes to gain advantages in races. So, how did the marathon go?

Well, I was going pretty good. I was winning, then halfway through, I decided to run into a ditch and become a fish there. And I lived there in a kingdom made of cotton candy. And it was like so good. And like really kind of on a awakening for me in a way that like I dealt a lot of stuff with my dad

that I had never, it was great. It was a good marathon. As long as I'm saying, it's a really good marathon. But then the weird thing is, I guess then you got up and won the race because people did it. Well, if everybody did it, that would be like the best. That would be fun to watch. That would be fun to watch.

Can you imagine how much more fun? Ratings off the charts. Just think about that in BC. Just think about it. In the Roman chariot races, not necessarily an Olympic event, but a sporting-esque event. They would often dope in some way. You take some substance. A lot of the things we've already mentioned, but they would also dope their horses.

Specifically, they would feed them substances like hydromel, which is this alcoholic beverage that was made from fermenting honey, and they thought it would make them run faster Why why honey? Why would that I guess it energy? Yeah, yeah Well for whatever reason they thought this alcoholic beverage would make your horse run really fast So dope up your horse so that you can win your terrier race That should be legal you should be able to get whatever you want to your horse That should be legal. You should be able to give whatever you want to your horse. I understand why you can't. That's abusing animals. No, you shouldn't. You should give your horse horse food. Horse food. I don't have horses, so I don't have to know how to take care of them,

but people who do probably feed them appropriate food for horses and they should continue to do so. You don't say you don't know that heroin isn't part of a horse diet. I have a strong suspicion. Fair. Gladiators also used to use performance enhancing drugs, which I kind of can't blame them for. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a tough gig out there.

It's a little different than like, I just didn't meddle at the Olympics too. I died. I died because somebody stabbed me and spilled my guts all over the sand. Yeah. So they would use hallucinogens as well. Not good. Bad jobs.

Bad jobs. Things that were perceived as stimulants such as strict 9, which we're going to talk a little bit more about strict 9 in particular, to stave off fatigue and to try to be more intense and stay and fight longer and survive longer to kill more things longer so that it would be a better fight. Because I guess if you won, you probably got a lot more money for some thing. Yeah, I'm sponsored ship deal. Mainly you live.

Yeah, you don't die. That's the biggest prize. Huge plus. The Aztec warriors in order to gain strength before different events, they would engage in, would eat human hearts. Now, is that permitted? Should that be permitted? You know, I'm going to say that Olympic athletes aren't allowed to eat human hearts, but at the same time, on that that list that the IOC has of performance

enhancing drugs that you're not allowed to take, a betcha human heart isn't on there. Yeah. Hey, can I ask a quick question about that? Yeah. We talked about cupping last week, and somebody mentioned that if it was effective, wouldn't it be banned by the IOC? So like generally speaking, do we ban stuff that's more chemical or? Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, yes. And also something that is perceived to give you an unfair advantage. If it's within the realm of like normal medical care

or normal like physical therapy, kind of, you know, things that you would just do to take care of your muscles and bones and joints, then you're okay. Something available to everybody and legal and safe. That's the other thing too, is it safe. Which we talked about cupping. You could make a case that it isn't. But the other thing is that wood

it actually give you an advantage. And we have no reason to think cupping does. So, but yeah, I mean, the big reason when they started and we'll kind of get into this, but the big reason when they started banning these substances had a lot to do with how dangerous they were. Yeah. First. Yeah.

And then the unfairness second. It makes sense. The, there was a tribe from Northern Mexico that used to be famous for doing peyote in order to run a lot. Really? Yeah. I don't know much about peyote, but it seems like the last thing I'd want to do.

The best theory I could come up with is just that you don't realize how much you're running. I guess that works for alcohol or is teleportation if you're drunk enough. You're just like, whoa, I walked home. Amazing. I get there, the drunk walk is the best walk. Yeah.

It's the best walk. I don't recommend that don't drunk walk Don't drunk walk. What podcast did you hear that from? No, I didn't tell you to do that Don't get drunk and if you do go to bed. What are you doing? You're an adult you're up to late. You're good Come on Now I mentioned strict nine and strict nine was used very I don't want to say commonly, but for a time period, very commonly, in races and endurance events,

anything that you would have to keep going for a long time. And it's because it is somewhat similar to caffeine. Okay. Like the molecular structure, it is somewhat like caffeine. And so it is a stimulant, except whereas caffeine, just, you know, worst case scenario makes you feel kind of jittery.

And on edge, straight nine, if you take too much, can kill you. That's a big difference, actually. It's pretty, it's a pretty big sign. In pills, sort of like caffeine pills, would have been used. Like this is Jesse Spano of the early 1900s. It would have been dancing to, I is Jesse Spano of the early 1900s,

would have been dancing to, I'm so excited and taking strict knife. That would be a very different episode, well. Much more, you know what, much more intense, more serious, the stakes would be a lot higher. Also, where'd she find it? You know, it's like caffeine pills. Well, if it's the early 1900s, you can buy it

over the counter in tonics and various, yeah, various preparations, pills and things that are sold, or are sold for stimulants. Yeah, not surprising. Yeah. Now, because it is, I don't know, maybe it would help a little bit, maybe, you know, I mean, that's fair. One Olympian did win a gold medal on Stric 9, so. and did win a gold medal on St. John's. So it is possible. A slightly stranger performance in a Hinsingham's Drug that I found was in ancient Egypt. They used to take donkey hooves, the Abyssinian donkey and powder them.

Okay. And that was popular. You would boil that in oil and then you wanted to add some rose hips to that because. Well, for flavor. For flavor. Yeah, right. Okay, and that was popular you would boil that in oil and then you wanted to add some rose hips to that because Well, for flavor flavor. Yeah, right So that was I don't know at my best guest for the theory on that was like cuz donkeys is the hooves they run on those They're good at running

I mean, can I beat it don't get a foot race? I don't know that donkeys are fast, but are they like incredible? Don't have like a lot of endurance don't they just keep going? They would have to yeah, I thought that they were good at that like donkeys are fast, but aren't they like incredible? Don't they have like a lot of endurance? Don't they just keep going? They would have to, yeah. I thought that they were good at that. Like donkeys just keep going. They would need to be predetermined to survive being crappy horses, which is what they are.

I don't think that's fair. I don't wanna talk about donkeys, didn't he? They may be so angry. Because they're bad horses? They're just bad horses. If they're wanna be horses, they wish. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, donkeys and donkeys lovers for

Justin's outpouring of hatred towards you. Now baking soda. Yeah. Did you know this is used for doping? No, and that's not doping. Well, it's not illegal. Okay. But it is used as a performance enhancing substance. So baking soda doping, which is also called just soda doping, which I actually really enjoy. Although I kind of imagine you chugging like five crystal Pepsi's before a race. Like, y'all, you're soda doping. Yeah, do the do.

It's gonna give you the extreme edge. That's what that means before like the X games. Right, you got a jam. You just jam like five code reds. And there you go. You're ready. You're ready to do your cool skateboard stuff. Goofybone, list Jesus. All the moves, all the hits, no worry moves. So soda dumping is still used today by some swimmers. So there you go. This is still this is this is old and new, old and forever. The idea behind taking baking soda

to enhance your athletic performance is that if you're, if the pH in your blood, so the acid-based balance, if you can add more baking soda, make it more basic. So raise that pH. Then what, as you start exercising, you know, you accumulate lactic acid as you do, especially certain kinds of exercise or more anaerobic and so you get more lactic

acid, the point is you make an acid, your blood becomes more acidic. So if you're adding a basin there, that process will happen more slowly is the thought process. That lactic acid accumulating in your muscles is what eventually makes you tired and makes you wanna stop exercising. So if you slow down that process, you won't get tired as quickly, therefore you can do things longer. Does that make sense? That makes sense.

It's not illegal. They've done some studies on this and they've shown like a teeny little benefit. Some of them have, like maybe it really did do something, maybe like a one to two percent increase in how fast or how long you've run or swim or whatever. But like that could be enough really for a lot of these events.

Exactly. And the Olympics, it could be enough. Now, not all study support this. There are just as many that say, meh, maybe not as say that it does. It's really not dangerous if properly administered. But it's lucky. Except it can give you pretty vicious diarrhea. Whoa Let's hope that way so after the race a yeah, we are really of

Unfortunate Olympic spectacle especially in the pool. Yeah, I think I'm not frozen Rio. Can you not please? Could you not the soda doping? So yeah. Yeah. And again, it's not illegal. It was baking soda. Also one weird side note, UV rays have been experimented with throughout the years. I don't know based on the idea that it gives you energy. Specifically, there have been a lot of Russian and German experiments throughout history where they have tried to like

radiate runners and make them run faster. And I don't think that works. Yeah, nice. All right, they just get cool to dance. Cool to dance. What else you got, Sid? Well, Justin, I'm going to tell you all about that, but first, why don't you come with me to the willing department? Let's go.

The medicines, the medicines that I skill in my cards for the mouth. Let's go. Attention Europe! This Fall Maximum Fund is bringing a bunch of your favorite podcasters to London. Catch Judge John Hodgman, International Waters and Bullseye, all recording live episodes at the London Podcast Festival. We'll have fan meetups and we'll be joined on stage by a gliding array of celebrity guests. The London Podcast Festival runs September 22nd through 26th and you can buy your tickets right now. Just go to MaximumFund.org. So Sid, before I start rudely interrupted, you're about to continue to surprise and delight me with the history of performance enhancing baking soda. Now I know after I told you all the baking soda may, who knows, may slightly enhance your athletic performance and

probably isn't fatal. You may be tempted to try it. Well I've got another one that might be less appealing. Okay I'm ready. Guinea pig sperm. Now come on. Nope, that's the truth. Come on. So in the 1800s, Charles Brown's Accord. And by the way, there are other medical people out there going, I know about a Brown's Accord syndrome. Yep, it's the very guy.

He also has a syndrome unrelated to the Guinea pig semen, just throwing that out there. And probably more respected in the community. I'm going to guess. Yeah. Okay. He did some things. He was a smart guy, but he also did some things. I mean, that that specific achievement. Yeah. More respected than the one I'm about to talk about. Okay. He made an extract out of dog and guinea pig testicles. And then he injected it into it into himself. And then he decided, you know what, I should record this

and turn it into a science experiment. It's said, my dirty weird thing that I love. He was very much trying, he had this idea that there was something contained within the testicles that was vital for your youth and your energy and your continued vitality. And so he thought if you could make an extract out of testicles and take regular injections that maybe that would improve your quality of life and then from that athletic performance. So not only did he use it on himself, he wanted to prove that it could help with physical functioning and performance. So he gave it to a pitcher from the 1800s.

James Pud Galvin. You got to pick a guy's name, that poor guy. But that was his... That was his... That was his... Hard road. Nickname. Pud.

Pud, you know why? Why? Because he was known for reducing batters to pudding. Oh, okay. So that's pretty good. It's a pretty good reason to have that nickname. Maybe his nickname was Pud then, right? Yeah, I guess. Pud. Looks like Pud.

It does look like Pud. But it's Pud. It's Pud. Anyway. Anyway, he was famous. He won 364 games. He played a total of 646 games, which I guess that's a big deal.

It sounds like a lot of games. Let me say that's 364 more than I have one, like personal career. The way that I read that sentence when I read it, it sounded like it was impressive. Anyway, because he used this, it gained a lot of popularity and it became called the Brown Secward Elixir of life. Very dramatic. Yes. So how did he go about collecting this?

He or what did he put in this, first of all? So we needed to. Let's give me a second to ease into collection, okay, because I'm not quite prepared. So in order to make the elixir of life, you need blood of the testicular veins. So you have to go into the testicular veins and extract blood, you know, hypodermic needle wise.

Secondly, you need the semen. Which I mean, at this point, if we're probably talking about dogs and getting pigs that we've already. Yeah. You know, the fun, dissected. The hard part about it is finding erotica that both them can enjoy that's the real struggle with it making out of the And now thirdly You're just gonna want to

take the testicle Mm-hmm crush it I know and you want to I mean you're taking them out of the animal first. Like you're removing testicles, you're castrating dogs and getting pigs, you're going to crush the testicles instantly. Like you want them crushed, fresh out of the dog. Fresh. Yeah. And then take that juice and add it in with the blood

and the semen that is already there in there. That port, that port is it from the same box that just got their semen? Yeah. I wish they, they probably didn't even know those it was their last one last run. I mean you could mix it together from different dogs and different getting pigs if you want to. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That seems like I know the job I would want to play as a dog or a game big. If I'm sorry, can I apply for transfer?

And then I mean, we're worst part of it. I think, though, is after all that, you're going to put it in a syringe and inject it into your arm. Yeah. Thanks. This will make me play baseball good in 15 minutes. Cool. Totally worth it. Totally worth it.

Thanks, animals. You did it again. So he used it himself, and he promoted it extensively. And like I said, because he really believed that semen contained this thing, it was essential for physical function, but he took it a step further. He also thought it was essential for intellectual function and psychological well-being

that semen was the source. Of it all, yeah. Of it all. As a result of that, he also firmly believed that losing too much semen made you, I mean, dumb and weak, basically. Perfect. So he was an advocate of keeping your semen as a key to productivity.

Oh, no. And I don't mean like in jars, I don't mean like like store it. I mean, like don't. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So no masturbation, certainly, but you're really better off not having sex and you certainly should never allow yourself

to be castrated. He felt like that people. That's like a pretty good rule of thumb, generally. He felt the men who were castrated definitely suffered from this. You know, I don't need to be good at baseball and even I am going to heed that advice. One quote directly from his, his recount of, of creating this elixir of life and what

he did with it and everything that I really appreciated when he was making this argument that you can tell a difference between men who have a lot of sex or masturbate a lot and men who don't. This is, this is one of the things he said. It is, it is known that well organized men, especially from 20 to 35 years of age, who remain absolutely free from sexual intercourse or any other causes of expenditure of seminal fluid, are in a state of excitement, giving them a great, although abnormal physical and mental activity, which I think is very accurate.

I think if it's been a while, you're probably constantly in a state of excitement. But, yeah, you were right on the money with that one. Prone to abnormal physical and mental activity. Check. That could be true of many men. Yeah, absolutely. And women, many humans, many humans, many of us who are into...

Anywhere you follow the gender spectrum, This is pretty much going to be with rare acceptance. If sexual intercourse is your thing. If that is your thing. He credited it with making him stronger and smarter and able to stay up later. He recounted episodes of being able to lift a lot more specifically with his forearms. He thought it made his forearms much, much stronger. He calculated the arc of his urine stream and he felt that it was a higher arc and it was going farther the stream of his

urination after he started giving himself these testicle shots. And that's so important. It kept his bowels more regular and he even describes that on days when he's having a lot of constipation, he's able to like really like really push it out. Yeah, this is like so strong. Even though it's hard, he's able to summon the inner will. Burns and pewter and just like do it. Just force it out. Yeah. Because of these injections. Now this sounds crazy, I know. Bear with me for a second. Have you seen any commercials for low T?

Yeah, usually it's older guys playing guitars in a circle. Well, I mean, what commercials are you watching? Oh, that's probably more of a viagracing. The viagracing has the old guys playing guitars in the circle. But the low T commercials are like, hey, I know you're a little bit older, but you still want to get frisky in the sack

and also hang out in this waterfall and also hang glide. Rip a telephone book and have the variance. I'm just saying, it's not that far off base. This kind of like, hey, look, I started taking these injections of a male hormone and it made me stronger and smarter and faster and my life was better. I think we see those commercials today.

I'm just saying. It did kick off a lot of research into hormones and into chronology in general. So this guy is regarded in some ways as kind of a genius, but he also did this thing where he crushed dog testicles and injected it in his own. Yeah, but I love that one little messed up. So there was that too.

This is, I mean, and you can see where this would be based on the idea that there's testosterone and whatnot. And so did it actually do anything? I don't know because when you're crushing them like that, what are you getting and is it synthesized enough and is it for your unbound anyway? There you go. Don't don't crush dog testicles would be my advice. Fair. Or any pig. Now that frees up my afternoon tomorrow. So. Now back in the 1870s, cyclists were big fans of using ether as a performance enhancing drug. And the way you would administer that is you would just take some sugar cubes, soak them

in ether. And then if you really wanted that get up and go, if you have a long bike race and maybe you've got those cobblestones that everybody keeps talking about in the current Olympics, the cyclists are on cobblestones and that's a problem or something. You can add some nitroglycerin and some cocaine and maybe a little peppermint for flavor. So peppermint cocaine, nitroglycerin. Ether and a sugar cube. And that is how gaydory it was admitted. I would have said that that sounds much more similar to the formula for Mountain Dew, honestly. Yeah, for him. In general, the 1870s was a really rough period for endurance athletes. A lot of them were using things like heroin and cocaine.

There weren't our rules. There was one widely used mixture of coca leaf extract and wine called Venn Mariana, Mariani. And it was specifically dubbed the wine for athletes. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. You know, I was at the running shoe store. I saw that they had energy jelly bellies for running. So that makes sense. Same thing. The wine for athletes. Oh, don't mind this. This is my athletic one. No, this is pro sport wine for my muscles. That is sort of like those commercials where you see those people rollerblading

on their lunch break and then they drink a McLeod Boultera. Yeah, right. It's sport beer. It seems like a fun day. It was actually not until the 1920s that we started to see stimulants first and then other substances in the decades that followed band kind of one by one.

And since then, it's been like a series of substances pop up. People start using them. The IOC becomes aware of it and eventually they are banned. So give me a quick timeline. So we get testosterone shows up in the 30s. Amphetamines are very popular in the 50s. Anabolic steroids. So a very, I would say, popular performance enhancing drug abuse in the 50s, anabolic steroids, still a very, I would say popular,

performance enhancing drug abuse in the 60s. We start to see a Ritro Poetan and other hormones in the 80s, are you familiar with EPO? This makes you have more red blood cells. Oh, weird. So you can carry more oxygen. Okay. We use it in medicine, not for sport.

Sport, we use it in medicine, not for sport. We use it in medicine. What happened that really set off a lot of the kind of the investigation that we do into it now and how seriously it's taken in the Olympics and other professional sporting arenas now was the first death in a cyclist in 1960 who was on amphetamines. Oh wow. And that caught a lot of attention to it. In 1968, drug testing begins and they start banning certain substances. We are able, that's a big hang up, right? Until you can actually test for them, what's the point of banning them?

Yeah, right. You just ask everybody if they used them, they say no. So once you can start testing people for them, that it makes sense to actually start banning things. And since then we've just had endless media reports of people using and testing positive for different things and new things being developed that they can't test for and it takes them a lot to catch up. In 1998, one interesting point is a snow border lost his metal after he tested positive

for marijuana. Well, that seems later, Chris. I mean, Well, right. Why would you say that? But well, because pot wouldn't make you better at snowboarding? Exactly, which is why I got the medal back.

Oh, right. They didn't have these plays in place ahead of time. No, they didn't, I mean, they took it away because they were like, uh-oh, he's got marijuana in there. That's a drug. But then that was the argument he made. And then a lot of people made was, yeah, but marijuana doesn't make you better at sport. If anything, he should get a do-over.

So, just let him do it. Try again. I think he should get special commendation because imagine how much better he could have been. I mean, like, he did that high. That's what I'm saying. He should get like a silver run. Maybe he needs it to like carve just right, though. And you keep seeing athletes look for things that aren't illegal and aren't dangerous. I mean, people are more aware that, you know, they're not just injecting anything, strict nine into their body anymore because they don't want to die.

They don't want their hearts to explode. So last Olympics, my understanding is beat juice was very popular. Sure. Why not? Because it has nitrates and those are metabolized in your saliva. They're broken down in your saliva into nitric oxide and the thought was that this might help dilate blood vessels and improve your athletic performance a little bit if you drink a lot of beet juice.

And obviously that's not illegal. You can't test for that and it's not banned. Still you hear a lot about athletes using things that are banned, human growth hormone, creatine steroids, earth or poetin. Some things that aren't banned, like beta blockers, which is a certain medication that, well, you're not allowed to take it unless you're prescribed it. Let me say that. A certain medication for blood pressure. But we can't ban everything. Beats are okay, caffeine is still okay. That was banned for blood pressure. But we can't ban everything. Bites are okay.

Caffeine is still okay. That was banned for a while. And then it came back. And then they realized that was crazy. But you know, what's weird is you asked about where the line is with cupping. And that's the weird thing with a lot of these substances. So I mentioned Arithrapoietin or EPO, which is used to give you more red blood cells. You know the other way you can get naturally have more EPO.

No. Just move to Colorado. Really? Higher elevations. Give it. Well, that's wild. I had an idea. Because the air is thinner so you get more, so you get more red blood cells, more oxygen

carrying capacity. So if you wanted to do this instead of injecting yourself with something, you could just live in Colorado and that's not illegal. No, it's perfectly legal to live in Colorado. Yeah, it's illegal to live in Colorado. It is not legal to use EP out. So it's weird. It's a weird line like what's, you know, baking soda is fine. But obviously steroids aren't so. It's a good figure.

Capping is still okay and I don't even know it doesn't work. Maybe that's why it's okay. Can you see your tape is okay? I wouldn't recommend it though. Folks that's gonna do it. I'm ready. That's gonna do it before I thank you so much for listening. One thing to the taxpayers for the use of their song Medicines is the intro and outro of our program. You can find more of their stuff at taxpayers.bankamp.com. Thanks to the maximumfund.org network for letting us be a part of their extent and podcasting family. There's a ton of great shows on there that you can go enjoy right now if you had a maximum fund.org

I would highly recommend a little podcast called Magic Lessons by our friend Liz Gilbert You know, or as the author of ePaylove magic. She is doing a podcast where she talks people who are in creative professions and tries to help them pass creative stumbling blocks with the help of a lot of cool guests. And it's a great show. And I think you're really liking it. It's on iTunes right now, so you can go listen to it.

Anything else, sister? I think that'll do it for us, Justin. Well, folks, until next week, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. MUSIC All right. Yeah. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artists owned. Alright!

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