Supplements and inadvertent doping - how big is the risk to athletes

Despite ongoing improvements to regulatory and manufacturing guidelines, the potential for contaminated nutritional supplements to cause a failed doping test for an athlete remains a concern. Several surveys of supplements available through the internet and at retail have confirmed that many are contaminated with steroids and stimulants that are prohibited for use in elite sport. Suggested responses to this issue include the complete avoidance of all supplements. However, this approach seems to be unrealistic as many athletes use nutritional supplements for very different reasons. In addition, the number of publications describing trials that demonstrate the benefit of certain nutritional products has also increased over the last decade or so. This ensures that for many sports the use of supplements will remain a common practice. In response to the issue of contamination in nutritional supplements, many reputable manufacturers have their products rigorously tested by sports anti-doping laboratories to help ensure as far as possible that the risks to an athlete remain minimal. In this chapter we review the issue of supplements and contamination, and look at how this might be addressed through effective quality control procedures at the manufacturing facility and through the highly sensitive testing of finished products using appropriately accredited tests.