Lance Armstrong recently became the latest in a long line of disgraced athletes felled after testing positive for banned substances. Ordinarily, after issuing staunch public denials, athletes often resort to the “I thought I was taking a dietary supplement” excuse. The supplement defense usually does little to absolve the athlete but collaterally heaps unwarranted negativity on the supplement industry as a whole. Members of the dietary supplement industry are making efforts to foster a greater sense of credibility.

Last year the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) launched its Supplement 411 initiative created to help athletes make educated decisions when it comes to choosing nutritional products and with the goal of helping them to steer clear of tainted and adulterated nutritional products.
 
“The current marketplace has created a dilemma in which all athletes must balance their beliefs that these products provide a nutritional benefit, with the very real threat of the potential for dangerous health side-effects,” commented Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA.
 
Specifically, Supplement 411 was designed to be an informational framework for understanding the issues surrounding dietary supplements, addressing important areas including: challenging the commonly held perceptions that dietary supplements are safe and effective; raising awareness of the risks in the dietary supplement marketplace; and providing guidance, resources and steps that can be taken to reduce risk as much as possible if an individual decides to use dietary supplements.

The website lists products determined by USADA to be at a higher risk for containing prohibited substances. Updated regularly, the list is comprised of products that either openly list ingredients on their labels, or have been tested and shown to contain substances, that are on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List.

Members within the dietary supplement industry have also stepped up to help make the choice for safe supplements easier.
 
NSF International also developed its NSF Dietary Supplement Certification and NSF Certified for Sport programs, which test and certify the safety and quality of dietary and sports nutrition products, whereby GMP audits of manufacturing facilities, as well as toxicology, label claim and contaminant reviews are required.
 
The NSF Certified for Sport program also screens supplements for more than 165 banned substances and undeclared ingredients including stimulants, narcotics, steroids, diuretics, beta-2-agonists, masking agents and other substances, as well as unsafe levels of contaminants.
 
Recognized by major sports organizations such as the NFL, MLB and their player associations, PGA, LPGA and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), the NSF Certified for Sport program is also accredited by the American National Standards Institute and the Standards Council of Canada, and meets USADA’s criteria of maintaining multiple international accreditations including ISO Guide 65 (requirements for bodies operating product certification systems), ISO 17025 (requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories) and ISO 17020 (criteria for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection).
 
“NSF International fully supports USADA’s initiative to eliminate adulterated dietary supplements and nutritional products in the marketplace, and we will continue to do our part by offering testing and certification solutions that safeguard athletes and consumers from taking such products,” said Ed Wyszumiala, NSF International’s general manager of Dietary Supplement Certification Programs.
 
NSF also developed a companion smart phone app that enables athletes and trainers to easily search NSF’s list of certified products from an iPhone (and iPad) or Android phone.
 
“The need for these programs is great,” Mr. Wyszumiala commented. “Multiple studies have shown that as many as 20-25% of the bodybuilding products sold over-the-counter in health food stores may be spiked with anabolic steroids and other substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). We must make it easier for athletes and consumers to find safe products.”
 
Sports doping is not just a domestic issue. Last month, the England-based sports anti-doping laboratory HFL Sport Science (part of the LGC Group), announced that it had stepped up its offerings to provide sports supplement certification programs that offer athletes, coaches and consumers an informed choice when choosing sports supplements.
 
Set up in consultation with industry and sports regulators, its Informed-Sport program was established in 2008 and now has well over 100 products made by registered companies.
 
“With the growing use of sports nutrition products amongst both amateur and professional athletes, the regulation and testing of such products is becoming increasingly important,” the company said in a press release.
 
Following years of research into anti-doping and the provision of sports regulatory testing services for both human and animal sports, HFL Sport Science (HFL) established its nutritional supplement testing service in 2002. The company’s most recently launched initiative to that end is its Informed-Sport supplement certification program, which allows companies to use a “kite mark” on packaging that enables consumers to spot those products that have met the rigorous certification requirements.
 
“There are a number of supplements available on the market that contain banned substances, including the stimulant DMAA (dimethylamylamine), as listed ingredients,” said the HFL’s Caroline Russell. “Unfortunately it is not always easy to spot these ingredients on the label as they are often disclosed with complicated chemical or other names. To the untrained eye, these products can look perfectly safe.
 
“This was one of the reasons why Informed-Sport was launched—athletes and consumers can look for the Informed-Sport logo on pack and know that a team of expert scientists have assessed the product to ensure it does not contain banned substances,” she continued. “There are many reputable supplement companies who go out of their way to ensure that their products are safer for use by enrolling into such testing and certification programs.”
 
HFL advised that any athletes looking for supplements they can trust should carefully assess the potential risks of inadvertent consumption of a banned substance by choosing products from a reputable company, that have been routinely tested for banned substances at an experienced sports doping control laboratory (with ISO 17025 accredited methods), and that have been made to the highest standards of quality.