Sports Supplements and Safety
With so many sports supplements in the market it can be hard to decide what is good and safe to take versus what could potentially hinder your athletic ability. Every athlete is individual with different needs and goals for their sport and therefore the supplements they choose to take, if any, are going to be different. Many athletes rely on coaches, teammates, local stores, and the internet to choose what brands and kinds of supplements to take, with more and more supplement brands turning to social media this can feel like an overwhelming amount of information being thrown at you. So today we are going to look just at the safety of sports supplements on the market.
Unlike food and medicines, supplements are not required to be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for safety or effacacy. This means that the claims that brands make about what their supplements can do are not required to be fact checked, nor are the supplements tested to make sure that the ingredients listed on the label are actually in the product before they hit the market. Some companies may pay to do in-house testing for quality control, but this is not the same as clinical trials for safety or effectiveness. This lack of accountability for supplement companies has led to failed drug tests, sickness, and even deaths. So what should we look out for on supplement labels to try to ensure our health?
Big claims that seem too good to be true often are. Safe weight loss is set at about 2 lbs per week, so supplements that claim to make you loose 10 lbs in 10 days may be either false claims, not work the way we want them to ( think water loss versus fat loss), or work in dangerous ways.
Look for supplements that are backed by clinical trials, and brands that can show these clinical trials. Some supplements we know work well, we know how they function in the body on a biological level, and studies have been done to prove safe levels of use of these supplements. Look for brands that can present this research that what they are using in their ingredients actually works.
In the United States there are quality certification programs for supplements that are optional. ConsumerLab.com, NSF International, and US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) assess submitted supplements for purity, potency, composition, and more. Supplements that pass certification by these third-party organizations will have a seal on them ( each organization has their own seal) that verifies that they have completed the assessment process. These seals are considered the gold standard for supplements in the US.