Darren Burke, PhDPhD, Exercise Physiology · Sport scientist · Sep 30, 2026
The famous 'half of athletes would die to win' finding doesn't hold up.
In the 1980s and 90s, physician Bob Goldman reported that about half of elite athletes said they'd take a drug that guaranteed years of winning even if it killed them after 5 years. It was never published in a peer-reviewed journal. When researchers asked 212 elite track and field athletes the same question in 2013, only 2 said yes. Getting caught mattered more than dying: 25 said they'd take an undetectable drug that didn't kill them.
Darren Burke, PhDPhD, Exercise Physiology · Sport scientist · Sep 30, 2026
Anonymous surveys suggest doping is far more common than drug tests show.
At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, researchers used a survey method that lets athletes admit doping without anyone, including the researchers, knowing who said yes. The estimate: 43.6% had doped in the past year. At the 2011 Pan-Arab Games it was 57.1%. Drug tests were catching roughly 1 to 2%. Anonymous questions get closer to the truth than tests do.
Darren Burke, PhDPhD, Exercise Physiology · Sport scientist · Sep 30, 2026
Long-term steroid use shows up in the heart.
A study of 140 experienced male weightlifters compared 86 who had used anabolic steroids for 2 years or more with 54 who never had. The users' hearts pumped less blood per beat (ejection fraction 52% vs 63%), and they had more plaque in the arteries that feed the heart. More years of use went with more plaque. For some drugs, the cost in the win-drug question is real.