There have been several cases in sports wherein athletes were suspended. This is because of positive tests for steroids due to accidental intake of dietary supplements that contain these banned substances. Undoubtedly, such case makes an athlete go crazy. Simply, because they were victimized. The sad thing is, they would have to accept their mistake for buying a dietary supplement that contain steroids and move on. Amy Shipley of Washington Post featured in her report just recently about the inclusion of steroids in some “popular” dietary supplements. According to her, these dietary supplements are sold over the Internet, especially for the health and fitness enthusiasts. Since every athlete is a health and fitness enthusiast, they often have the tendency to buy the product without the thought that this can cause them future problems.

Unfortunately, despite of the existing law which regulates steroids, there are still some manufacturers that sells dietary supplements which contain these banned substances. In fact, 22 dietary supplements were found out to contain anabolic steroids by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) during the first quarter of this year according to the Federal Register report.

Streetdrugs.org also featured the contamination of steroids of some dietary supplements. They showed the result of a recent study conducted by a nonprofit dietary supplement coalition, Informed Choice, to determine the occurrences of the inclusion of steroids to dietary supplements in America. Surprisingly, study revealed that 25 percent of today’s popular dietary supplement is found to contain low level of steroids. In addition, 11 percent of these dietary supplements were also found to contain stimulants, ephedrine in particular. It is alarming that these steroids were not declared on the label of the products.

Meanwhile, a British Company also played a part on the study by probing the levels of steroid including stimulant contamination in the alleged popular dietary supplements which contain these illegal substances. Streetdrugs.org also stated that if this problem will never be stopped, the job of US anti-Doping Agency (USADA) will become more difficult since this can be used to claim for the innocence of those athletes who can be tested positive for steroids in sports.

Now, the question is why do these dietary supplements include the banned substance? There are actually three principal reasons, which are stated below:
1. Intended Contamination: Some allegations claim that manufacturers of these dietary supplements were adding the undeclared steroids and stimulant to let the consumer evidently feel the effect of the product. Logically speaking, once the consumer felt the effect of the product he would immediately think that the product is giving him a good result; hence, he will buy the product again and again—profit then is certain.
2. Cross-contamination: It is true that there are several manufacturers in different categories of supplements that use the same facility. Like for instance, vitamin and mineral products may be processed using the same equipment of ephedrine products. Once the equipment was not properly cleansed, cross-contamination can occur.
3. Contaminated raw substance. Since supplement manufacturers normally import raw materials from Europe, India, and Asia, these may possibly be contaminated with impurities.

Consumers are still the victims in general, whether they are active in sports or not. The government should do something specially in monitoring these companies producing dietary supplements.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS