Essentials of Nutrition for Sports

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It is uncertain whether the same ingredients are present in the next bottle.
A report in

Consumer’s Reports

on a certain brand of ginseng

showed that amounts of ginseng per dose varied by a factor of 10, even though the bottles were labeled as having the same quantity. Whether there is any good reason to

believe ginseng works is another

matter entirely.

Supplements have always been hot in America. They are held to

a lower standard than drugs. As Brad Stone, an FDA spokesperson, notes, “A company must show a drug is safe and effective before it gets approved. With supplements, the burden of proof is after the fact. The FDA must show that a product is unsafe to take it off the market.”

Over the years, we have often heard excuses from tested athletes

caught by drug control that they did not realize that the banned substance was in their favorite supplement. Professional athletes cannot afford to take such chances.

For a fuller discussion about problems with dietary supplements,

see page

150

.

Magazine Reports

Journals and lay magazines publis

h what is new and what may

work, not what doesn’t.

If a new product comes to their attention, what counts is whether

reporting is newsworthy—whether it advances knowledge or whether it will sell more copies or advertising.

Some magazines give an uncritical and positive slant to every

new item: they do not want to offend any potential advertisers and want to keep positive about the industry. Whether or not, and how well the product works, is less important. For these publications,

negative reports do not sell. Their readers are not interested in what not

to buy; they are interested in what new product they might

try

.

Private companies usually fund research. Good sport science

lags marketing and advertising. Said differently, marketing and advertising hype predates good science

Journals and magazines publish articles that something does not

work only after the common belief is that it does work—then it is again newsworthy or sells copy.

Magazines are sometimes motivated to report negative results

under the headline of reporting

new

research, often from competing

private companies funding essentially negative reports about another product and promoting their product as better.

It is often not reported that the old product was

bad

, just that the

current one is

new

and

improved

.

Coaches

Some coaches may provide an

honest opinion, based on

experience and knowledge.

Unfortunately, many other coaches have conflicts of interest,

receiving sponsorship product or kickbacks from manufacturers, and often fail to disclose their conflicts.

Political Manipulation

Charges that politicians make studies fit their agendas are well

known. Such accusations increased during the Bush administration.

Barton Reppert, writing in the Christian Science Monitor

noted:

25

“In theory, science is supposed to be cold, analytical,

dispassionate - and studiously apolitical. But in the real world of competing demands for federal research dollars, savvy scientists of

25 http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0106/p11s02-coop.html. Accessed 10-23-2004.

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