ABSTRACT

The use of nutritional supplements (NS) is ubiquitous in sport with athletes looking for performance gains or ways to cope with heightened training demands. Such use involves a balance between potential benefits (e.g., through a carefully monitored NS program) and potential risks (e.g., inadvertent doping). Misinformed practice has raised serious concerns at a global level and there have been a growing number of claims of inadvertent doping through the use of NS (e.g., NS containing 1,3-dimethylamylamine or DMAA; “Rule Violations” n.d). Yet, risk does not stop at the possibility of a doping sanction. In the UK alone NS use has been cited as a factor in a number of deaths involving young and apparently healthy men and women. For example, an inquest concluded that DMAA found in Jack-3D was a contributory factor in the death of a 30-year-old runner during the 2012 London Marathon (“Claire Squires inquest” 2013). However, in the absence of clinical trials evidencing the side effects of these substances on human health, we must be cautious and avoid causal claims. Instead, supplement use risk, athletes’ reasons for using NS, and the proposition that NS use can act as a gateway to doping are the focus of the chapter. Additionally, we support calls for increased regulation of the industry and research on functional alternatives to NS.