U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Chief Science Officer Dr. Matt Fedoruk explains how supplements are marketed and the warning signs to look for when it comes to evaluating products that your athlete may consume.
Learn more about Dr. Matt Fedoruk.
Video Transcript
Supplement Marketing is a complex area because companies are allowed to say certain things, and they’re not allowed to say certain things when it comes to marketing their products. And that’s primarily regulated by, in the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the FTC.
And from the standpoint of marketing a product, when companies are making claims, and they’re claiming that this product is testosterone enhancing or muscle building, or pre-workout energy boosting. These should all be red flags as to, well, how are they doing that? And how do they differentiate themselves from their competitor?
One way they can differentiate themselves from their competitor, is actually adding banned substances that work and cause those effects. But that could cause potential health ramifications or cause an athlete to test positive.
I think it’s really important when parents are evaluating products, that they look for those red flags on products. And those red flags you saw it in TrueSport has come up with a list of those red flags. But some examples are things like the marketing claims and how to read a label. And are they claiming that the product will enhance performance? And if so, how is it enhancing performance? And how does it link together with the ingredients that are listed on the supplement facts label?
If your physician or care provider has prescribed a supplement, one way that parents can do some due diligence is, just by going online and simply doing a Google search on the company or the manufacturer of these products. Oftentimes if you Google search the name in conjunction with another word like FDA. If there’s a warning or enforcement action against the company, these types of things will pop up and be useful to a consumer and trying to evaluate whether these are legitimate products or not.
So as you saw it in TrueSport, there’s no such thing as a completely 100% risk-free supplement. Our message is still to athletes and parents and other stakeholders that they need to be informed consumers. And they use supplements at their own risk. You saw that as an entity in TrueSport, we can’t control the market and we can only understand the market and educate others as to how the market operates and help athletes reduce that risk.
And if they choose to use supplements, choose products that are the lowest risk products for the obvious reasons of being able to protect an athlete’s health and protect their career.
