Banned Substances

[[old] 88Gordon88]

I am currently training for the canada games so what i eat is very important to me. I just stopped taking protein powder hearing that it may contain banned substances, and i was wondering if there is any truith in this. I was also wondering about the amound of caffeen allowed in your system, and any other foods or products to stay away from such as green tea, or any other supplements.

[[old] Kudos]

any supplement could have anything in it cause the ingrediants are not regulated by the FDA. But I think that anything from a name brand company is 99.9% safe of banned substances regarding non-hormone supplements. The amount of caffiene that is allowed is pretty high, but I'm not exactly sure of the amount. It depends on the agency that is regulating the event.

[[old] Rob Collings]

<!--QuoteBegin-Kudos+Feb 19 2005, 07:47 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Kudos @ Feb 19 2005, 07:47 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->any supplement could have anything in it cause the ingrediants are not regulated by the FDA. But I think that anything from a name brand company is 99.9% safe of banned substances regarding non-hormone supplements. The amount of caffiene that is allowed is pretty high, but I'm not exactly sure of the amount. It depends on the agency that is regulating the event.<br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Here in the UK there was a study carried out by UKSport and it found that a rather high proportion of supplements contained banned substances. If you are going to use them, best to research the company a little to find out because there are very few defences against a positive test.<br /><br />Caffeine is no longer on the WADA prohibited list - it has been moved to the monitoring list instead. Assuming your governing body uses the WADA list (and most do) you can drink all the coffee you want. I think the limit used to be 12mg/l urine which you would have if tested an hour after drinking 5-8 cans of coke (or something like that). Caffeine has been shown to enhance performace at lower levels, though.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />Rob.

[[old] Kudos]

Hey rob<br />I was referring to US supplements but you bring up a valid point that everywhere is not safe. I would say that standard protein powders and vitamins are still safe just about anywhere. But a lot of the stronger supplements that are meant specifially for performance enhancement not diet supplementation contain pro-hormones. Most of this stuff you are not going to find in your standard GNC or nutriton shop. I never saw any of this stuff untill I started looking for supplements online. If you can find a good nutrition shop, someone there should know what is and what is not in the product and whether or not it is illegal for most agencies. If this is too much stress for you, its probably better to not take anything, becasue the 10-20% advantage that you could get may not be worth the psychological hassle.

[[old] Physicist]

<!--QuoteBegin-Kudos+Feb 21 2005, 09:40 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Kudos @ Feb 21 2005, 09:40 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->any supplement could have anything in it cause the ingrediants are not regulated by the FDA </td></tr></table><br /><br />what do you mean by this? Surely supplements don't have no regulation over what's in them?? Aren't they subject to the same regulations as any other food?

[[old] Porkchop]

<!--QuoteBegin-Physicist+Feb 21 2005, 06:05 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Physicist @ Feb 21 2005, 06:05 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Aren't they subject to the same regulations as any other food? <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />A number of years ago congress passed a law that exempts nutritional supplements and "natural" foods from regulation as drugs in the United States. They are still subject to regulation as foodstuffs, but that simply means that it is illegal to adulterate them with unlisted ingredients or to allow them to be contaminated with disease-causing bacteria, etc. But even then, the manufacturers are able to list ingredients under proprietary names without specifically giving the generic or chemical names. Certain types of ingredients have been banned recently -- ephedrine and (as of 1/1/2005) virtually all chemical precursors of androgenic anabolic steroids. Other than that, if a manufacturer wants to list an ingredient as "Secret Amino Acid Combination X," it is allowed to do so.<br /><br />Porkchop

[[old] Physicist]

Ah<br />Thanks

[[old] Rob Collings]

<!--QuoteBegin-Kudos+Feb 21 2005, 09:40 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Kudos @ Feb 21 2005, 09:40 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Hey rob<br />I was referring to US supplements but you bring up a valid point that everywhere is not safe. I would say that standard protein powders and vitamins are still safe just about anywhere. But a lot of the stronger supplements that are meant specifially for performance enhancement not diet supplementation contain pro-hormones. Most of this stuff you are not going to find in your standard GNC or nutriton shop. </td></tr></table><br /><br />But if the same company sells protein powder and some more adventurous stuff, then there may be some cross-contamination between products. This is what I was referring to. It's not a case of listed ingredients being banned, it's the stuff that isn't meant to be in that somehow ends up in there.<br /><br /><!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If you can find a good nutrition shop, someone there should know what is and what is not in the product and whether or not it is illegal for most agencies. If this is too much stress for you, its probably better to not take anything, becasue the 10-20% advantage that you could get may not be worth the psychological hassle. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Again, it's the contaminants that aren't in there that you have to watch for. And this does happen more often than you'd think. I've seen contamination in "up to 30% of products" touted as a statistic somewhere. And I doubt any supplement gives a 10-20% advantage. That's a minute over 2k... Actually, I have heard of one - it's called training <br /><br />Cheers,<br />Rob.

[[old] Kudos]

well maybe for one time there is no miracle pill for 10-20% improvement. But a combination of better training, diet, and supplementation of aminos, vitamins, and caffiene I would say that I have seen a 30% improvement in my scores over 4 years. You are right that there could be some cross contamination between different supplements but like I said I think that is very rare in reputable companies. They are aware of such a problem and would be more than upset if some of their sponsored athletes were to fail a test from taking one of their supplements that they claimed to be safe. I have seen figures of all kinds of horrors of supplements so on and so forth but I have enever met one athlete who has failed from taking a supplement. I know quite a few too. I have only heard once of an austrian team getting busted for something they brought to thier med team and they said it was okay and it turns out it wasn't. The product had contained a banned substance that was not reported on the label, but the med team never screened it or checked with the company. Just laziness.<br /><br />anyway, we'll just agree to disagree on some of the certain aspects of supplements. One thing we do agree in on is no supplement is 100% safe, so anything other than whole food is risk. Just how much of risk are you willing to take is the question.

[[old] Rob Collings]

I can go with that. I take Science in Sport stuff myself. Tennis got itself into a right mess a while back over a similar issue:<br /><br /><!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Rusedski's defence hinges on the fact that the Association of Tennis Professionals, the governing body of men's tennis, chose not to take action against seven of its players who tested positive for nandrolone between August 2002 and May 2003. It declined to take action because, according to its internal investigation lead by the anti-doping expert Richard Young, the nandrolone may have come from contaminated supplements supplied by its own trainers. </td></tr></table><br /><br />It's all about understanding what you're taking, why and how much you trust your supplier.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />Rob.

[[old] Almostflipped]

Why not contact the RCA directly and find out if they have any information on safe suppliments? Seems like something they ought to have already addressed and figured out.

[[old] TomR/the elder]

Does anyone actually believe these athletes when they say that the steoids for which they tested positive must have come from contaminated supplements? <br /><br />Well, the supplements may have been contaminated, but was the contamination unintentional?<br /><br />Tom