Drugs in sport: a scientist-athlete's perspective: from ambition to neurochemistry.

This article, by the United Kingdom's last Olympic Marathon Medal winner, Charlie Spedding, and his brother, the pharmacologist, Michael Spedding, covers the difficulties posed by the availability of powerful drugs to ameliorate athletic performance, from an athlete's perspective, particularly in view of the fact that performances are becoming highly optimised with less margin for further physiological improvement. The authors have had long athletic careers and argue that doping not only devalues performance but sport, and exercise, as a whole. Furthermore, the neurotrophic and metabolic changes involved in exercise and training, which can be modified by drugs, are central to health and reflect a part of the epidemic in obesity.