I'm a Pro Athlete. How Do I Choose a Pure Supplement?
As a professional baseball player, I am now very concerned about banned substances and contamination of nutritional and performance-enhancement supplements with banned substances. What do you think about the list of certified pure supplements at informed-choice.org?
Certified Pure Supplements and Informed-Choice.org
I contacted NSF this morning about how to get a list of supplement companies that have passed the “certified for sport” testing procedure, and then I found a list myself on the informed-choice website. Assuming that is the most up to date list, it is rather short, and does not include a single company that I have a relationship with at the present time. The present list is current as of 10/27/09. I think an important thing for everyone to understand is why this matters to you. I will explain why.
this question is a major issue for all drug-tested sports today, but particularly baseball, because of what has occured in recent years with drug use controversy. In my opinion, what the government did with baseball in the last three to five years equates to a witch hunt. Baseball has now become a top villainous drug-using sport, because it violated the purity and sanctity of America-the-Beautiful’s national pastime. Another way of saying that is that I think what the US government did with baseball is bullshit.
Drugs in Professional Sport
Let us not be naïve and think that baseball has some unique lease on performance-enhancing substances that does not exist anywhere else in sport. Competition implies that you seek an edge, and as long competition exists, there are going to be those who seek an edge outside of the rules of the sport.
Though I do believe in level playing field, with the same rules applying to all, I am not personally against steroids. However, I do not recommend them at the present time, nor have I ever recommended them for any client that I have ever trained, whether for sport or otherwise. I want to categorically state that to you now, because you do not know me, and I don’t want to blow an early relationship because I didn’t communicate clearly with you from the start. I am personally against the illegal use of stimulants in sport, and I would say from my experience in baseball that illegal stimulant abuse is far more widespread than steroid use. Anyway, I am getting off topic; I just want it made clear to you that I understand your controlled-substance concerns, and I support your position.
Translating Informed Choice and Certified Pure Legal Jargon
That said, I want to highlight a portion of the top of the informed choice document, which states: “Please be aware that the results of this test apply only to the portion of the product tested and cannot be extrapolated to any other batches of the product. Prospective users of any product on this list should be aware that inclusion on the list is not a guarantee that the use of a product will not result in a positive dope test. Ultimate responsibility lies with the user and this should be considered by anyone choosing to use dietary supplements.”
What that statement from Informed Choice means is that their legal ass is covered; yours is not, at least not necessarily. Unless they individually test each bottle in each batch of supplements from each company that they’ve approved, there is no guarantee that what is in the bottle is what is on the label from the standpoint of banned substances. But there are also other issues to consider when purchasing a supplement.
Important Considerations When Choosing Supplements
Purity in Supplements - What It Means; What It SHOULD Mean
Purity means a bit more than just being free of banned substances. Purity also means, or should mean, free from environmental and chemical contaminants – heavy metals, solvents, etc. Though none of these chemicals makes the banned substance list, you better believe that they can hurt your performance, as they are toxic even in small amounts because our body is not great at excreting them.
Formulation of Supplements - Is It Optimal; Is It Intelligent; Is It Applicable?
Lastly, you have to consider what formulation is in the bottle itself. For instance, copper is typically pro-oxidative in men, and competes with zinc for absorption in tissue. Zinc is one of the most highly deficient minerals in the males and females, and that deficiency is exacerbated in athletes because they tend to sweat more, thus losing more minerals to increased perspiration, as well because their increased work levels drive more of the metabolic processes that increase zinc consumption.
A Real World Example: Copper and Zinc Supplementation
As such, no male, athlete or otherwise, should take a multivitamin with copper in it unless they have a major congenital predisposition to copper deficiency, which is very rare. Females should use copper judiciously.
A much better way to approach nutritional balance in the case of those two nutrients is to take them separately, IF necessary. While I am in no way attempting to discredit the general overall quality of the companies on the list that you gave me, every single one of their multivitamins contains copper. That, to me, signals that those particular companies formulators are either a) incompetent, or b) trying to create a one size fits all supplement. Athlete or not, general biochemical laws do not change, and the law of bio-individuality states that each person’s biochemistry is unique, so the applied knowledge of the formulator makes a difference.
As an athlete and as a thinking individual, you have to make the ultimate decision to use or not use a certain brand or a certain supplement, because ultimate responsibility lies with you. As such, I encourage you to use your brain actively in the process, rather than relying on one piece of information – the IC list – to make the decision for you.
What We Use for Our Athletes at Physiqology in NYC
Though I am not finished researching this issue, I can tell you that I am not widely familiar with any of those particular companies. The companies that I primarily use include Biotics Research, based in Texas. I also use a diverse range of individual supplements from several other pharmaceutical companies.
Supplement Quality You can Trust
These are the same companies that functional / integrative MD’s, naturopaths, etc. use in their practices throughout the nation, and most of those companies have a years-long track record of reliability. Furthermore, most of them also have proof of third-party verification of purity.
Biotics Research is a prime example in this regard. That company was originally a drug company that switched over to supplement manufacturing, but retained their status as a drug manufacturer, which means that their purity guidelines are super stringent. They actually supply MD Anderson Hospital’s research chemists with enzymes for their cancer research in Houston. The hospital buys from them because of their stringent quality control standards.
Charles Poliquin's company is becoming another major player in the sports supplement market, and his products are also very high quality. I know him personally, and I know how much care he takes in his formulations.
My intuition regarding this issue is that the IC was formed not because athletes were making large-scale mistakes in using illegal substances because their supplement sources were tainted by banned substances; they made large scale mistakes because they were using banned substances. If you haven’t seen it already, go rent or buy Bigger, Stronger, Faster*. It is a great movie in and of itself; it also provides some eye-opening insight.
The main point that I am trying to make is this: yes, there is no regulation in supplement manufacturing in the US, and that is both good and bad. What it ultimately leads to is that the onus of making intelligent decisions falls to the consumer and not to the government. As a person who highly values the independent thought process, that is very important. Always be willing to take new information in and evaluate it before saying yes, or no, to a given circumstance. Talk to you soon.
