Martin Leon Barreto
RONALD EVANS never intended to kick off a performance-enhancing drug craze, but that is what happened. Despite a ban on its use in sports, the substance he has long been studying has now been detected in doping tests of cyclists and boxers, while runners and bodybuilders share stories online about how it makes them leaner and stronger nonetheless.
The story begins in 2002, when Evans, a biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, performed some experiments involving mice and exercise wheels. He fed a drug known as GW1516 to unfit mice, expecting to see modest effects on their…
