KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The 43-year-old man says he feels 25. This is no small thing. David Segui was a major-league baseball player at 25, and a good one, making more than $40 million in what would become a 15-year career. So 25 was pretty good.
There's another reason this is no small thing. It's what he went through between 25 and 43. Too much of his 30s were miserable, with knees that felt full of rust and knives when he walked. Stairs were impossible. If he dropped something, it stayed dropped. Bending down took too much effort.
Ten years ago, when the pain was the worst, doctors found no cartilage in his knees. Just bone on bone, they told him, and those knees needed to be replaced.
"That didn't sound too fun," says Segui. "I thought, 'How about I get on drugs?' "
So he did, adding human growth hormone to the steroids he had taken on and off from 1994 to the end of his career in 2004. He still injects HGH every day by prescription -- one of baseball's first admitted performance-enhancing drug users continuing through retirement -- and there's obvious pride when he says his doctor calls him "my healthiest patient."
Segui is a marvel of modern science, with workouts that last up to four hours a day, all fueled by a synthetic drug banned by all major sports leagues. There are sprints and core work at his home in Johnson County, Kan., weights at the gym, and he laughs at how -- before the drugs -- he couldn't walk to the kitchen without pain.
He is also, perhaps, the future of how the rest of us view what are now illegal and labeled "performance-enhancing drugs." If they work this well, and can be used legally with a prescription, experts say it's a matter of time before our attitudes about them shift.
Today's climate has Mark McGwire giving a tearful admission about steroids and HGH.
Who knows? By the time McGwire is in his 60s, he may watch sports leagues that condone new science as those same drugs become more commonly used in society.
The future of what we now call performance-enhancing drugs may be more like Segui's happiness than McGwire's tears.
"I've heard the point made," says Andrzej Bartke, one of the world's leading experts on HGH, "that now you take urine samples to make sure you haven't taken drugs, where in 20 years you might take urine samples to make sure you took your drugs. This idea is approaching. Attitudes are changing."
Bartke is famous in certain circles for using growth hormone to keep a mouse alive for 1,819 days--nearly five years, and five times longer than the expected life span. He won 20,000 British pounds (about $32,000) for the project.
The implications for humans are obvious: a sort of fountain of youth that's already attracted thousands.
"It definitely works, there's no question about it," Bartke says. "You will get stronger, your muscles will get stronger. That's why the athletes take it."
But Bartke is always careful to stress that the long-term effects of growth hormone are mostly unknown, and that it should be used only in rare circumstances and with a legitimate doctor's guidance.
Steroids have been tied to liver and kidney problems, and growth hormone to cancer. Researchers are trying to figure out how much of that is the drugs, and how much is overzealous and unsupervised use.
Those are real issues that need to be resolved, but privately some doctors say the drugs can likely be beneficial and safe for at least some people when used carefully under medical supervision.
The tragedies, they say, happen with overdosing. If steroids were ever legalized, it probably would open a Pandora's box as competitive athletes overdosed themselves into bad health.
Growth hormone is the most likely to become socially acceptable. Science still needs more testing before it can go mainstream. But if that happens and you start to see your grandmother become less frail with a certain treatment, it becomes harder to make the case that it's dangerous to a linebacker.
"I think I see those changes," says Terry Todd, director of the Stark Center for Physical Culture in Sports at Texas. "I think these things are like the water temperature in the Atlantic. It takes a while for the seasons to change it. The outer air can change, but it takes a long time for the ocean to change. But such changes can occur."
Our bodies naturally produce human growth hormone. It is an essential substance for our muscles, bones and tissue to grow and strengthen. Over time--and particularly after 40 years--our bodies produce less growth hormone.
This is a part of the aging process and why we get weaker and slower, with less energy. Synthetic growth hormone was developed to treat certain diseases in children, but is often prescribed to adults whose bodies aren't producing enough of the hormone naturally.
HGH was added to the NFL's banned list in 1991, and to baseball's in 2005. But there is no reliable test for the drug, which has been shown to increase muscle and cut fat. It's become popular among older people looking to slow the aging process.
Among them is Ed Lothamer, a 68-year-old former Chiefs lineman. He takes HGH and testosterone. Despite his age and a list of injuries from an eight-year pro career, he works eight-hour days and maintains regular workouts while many of his former teammates ache and limp their way through retirement.
"I'm telling you: I wake up every day and I feel good," Lothamer says. "I do believe it does absolutely work. I want to keep going in life, and I feel good. I don't know if it's a panacea, but I think it's something that makes me feel better."
Anabolic steroids are a synthetic version of testosterone that stimulate muscle growth, traditionally making them popular among body builders. There are hundreds of different steroids that are often tied to side effects such as liver problems, high blood pressure and extreme mood swings.
McGwire said he began taking steroids to help recover from injuries, a common reason given by athletes. There is also little doubt that it helps build muscle mass, which can increase athletic performance.
The first documented use of steroids in professional sports came in 1962, when a Chargers strength coach introduced a steroid pill. The drug was banned by the NFL in 1983 and by baseball in 1991. Penalties have been in effect since 1989 in football, and 2004 in baseball.
Still, many studies show that steroid use among amateur athletes continues to increase.
"It's become more acceptable," says Don Hooton, an anti-steroids activist since his son committed suicide in a steroids depression in 2003. "They look, and if that's what the big athletes are doing, if that's what it takes to get to that level, they're going to do it.
"We've got a society that sends signals that performance-enhancing drugs are OK. Just think about the fact we call them performance enhancers ."
One of the evolving issues with HGH and other drugs is what constitutes cheating.
There was a time--we're talking hundreds of years ago--when mere training and practice were considered unseemly in amateur sports. Viewpoints have been changing ever since.
Proponents of HGH often compare its use with Lasik eye surgery, in that each corrects deficiencies that some of our bodies have. Competing with naturally decreased levels of growth hormone is a disadvantage, just like bad eyesight. So why can't doctors help treat both?
Gary Wadler is the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited-list subcommittee. He says the three most important criteria used for prohibiting a drug are performance enhancement, risk to health and violating the spirit of sport.
If a drug fills two of those, it could be banned--but not necessarily. "These regulations are based on science, not on whims," Wadler says. "The laws are quite clear."
The question then becomes whether over time science can reduce the health risks, and whether the public will begin to see it less as a violation of spirit and more as physical improvement--like taking supplements.
There are reasons to believe the second part is already happening.
Fans of 50 Cent, Timbaland, Wyclef Jean and Mary J. Blige didn't seem to care when those entertainers turned up in a steroids and HGH investigation last year.
"We've accepted it among other entertainers," says Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor with 25 years researching drugs and testing. "Why not accept it among sports entertainers?"
Well, maybe we have. Most experts and industry insiders say performance enhancers are just as prevalent in the NFL, but the public and media seem less interested in the details.
Major-league baseball has been rocked by drug scandal after drug scandal but--even with lots of steroids backlash--spent much of the last decade setting yearly records for revenue.
Dan Lebowitz is a former bodybuilder now in charge of Northeastern University's Study for Sport in Society. He saw the influence of drugs on his old sport decades ago and knew it was just a matter of time before they took over "major" sports like football and baseball.
The reception has him convinced that we're moving toward acceptance.
"Football, in many respects, is already the expression of how we accept PEDs," he says. "It's the way our entire culture thinks about everything. The anatomy of the woman, anatomy of the man, everything: Our culture is geared toward bigger, stronger, faster. More is always better."
Segui hasn't talked like this in years. Not to a reporter, anyway. He was among the first pro ballplayers to admit that he had used performance-enhancing drugs three years ago. His original motivation was a statement he saw from former teammate Jason Grimsley about a conversation they had regarding HGH.
Segui's name had been redacted, but he felt sure it would get out eventually and become tangled with worse scandals. He went public and quickly grew tired of people he thought were unwilling to listen with an open mind.
But now he likes hearing what these doctors are saying about attitudes changing. Segui thinks of himself as walking, sprinting, weightlifting proof that drugs currently banned by major sports leagues can be beneficial with no negative side effects.
Steroids should always be banned, Segui says, because athletes could never be trusted to take them responsibly. But he sees growth hormone differently, because it's something our bodies produce naturally.
He says his levels were abnormally low, which was causing the problems with his knees. Daily injections of HGH--insurance picks up most of the cost, so Segui pays about $180 for a box that lasts 15 days--merely put him back to normal range where he can enjoy a better quality of life.
Simple stuff, right?
"In 20 years," he says, "it won't be any big deal. You'll think of it like vitamins."
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