Sports Supplements - Safe or Foul?

Sports supplements are used by athletes  and other individuals to enhance their athletic performance. With the popularity of sports programs coupled with the big bucks most top athletes earn, this industry pursues the sports market with a quiet ferocity.

Ergogenic aids or sports supplements come in many different forms. They are packaged in order to grab your attention; with catchy phrases and vibrant colors. You can get them in pill, capsule or powder form. They are available for the most part, over-the-counter, and some sports medicine doctors dole them out like candy to their athletes. But, are these sports supplements really safe?

Unlike prescription drugs, sports supplements are not regulated by the FDA. Therefore, there are no clinical studies to draw on. No verification of the effectiveness or hidden dangers of these sports supplements.

Some of the more popular sports supplements in the past have now been banned by the NFL and other major sports leagues. These supplements contain steroids and include ephedra, creatine and androstendione. Any athlete caught taking these performance enhancing drugs face stiff fines and penalties.

Anabolic Steriods
Taking these sports supplements is really taking them at your own risk. Although anabolic steroids do indeed beef up your muscle by increasing your muscle mass, they also bring with them other aspects not quite so pleasant.

Taking anabolic steroids opens you up to heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular disease.  Many an athlete, young and old has suddenly dropped dead in center court or on the football field. The culprit is generally traced back to a sports supplement containing steroids.

You can develop insomnia, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, liver and bowel disease. Women who take steroids are also at risk. They will start to grow more body hair, may harbor suicidal thoughts or go through major bouts of depression.

The steroids can pump you up into the other realm of emotion and make you suddenly very angry; enraged to a point beyond reason in some instances.

Creatine
Creatine occurs naturally in your body. Creatine provides short bursts of energy. Two grams of creatine is manufactured from your liver daily and you can also get more creatine if you eat foods high in protein. But using creatine on a daily basis comes with side effects:

• Muscle cramps
• Nausea
• Stomach cramps
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea

Abusing creatine by taking more than the recommended dosage can lead to kidney and liver failure or heart disease.

Stimulants
Stimulants are used to propel the athlete through his training period or his sport. Stimulants can reduce fatigue, but will also bring with them bouts of aggressive behavior. Stimulants stimulate your central nervous system. Dexidrine and Benzedrine are common stimulants found in athlete’s lockers.

High in caffeine, stimulants can create a buzz within the body, but when you come down off them, you find you are nervous, have trouble concentrating, can’t sleep, or you might get the shakes. Overusing stimulants can cause some long term problems and addiction:

• Heart problems
• Weight loss
• Hypertension
• Hallucinations
• Convulsions
• Brain hemorrhage
• Heart attack

Diuretics
Diuretics increase the amount of urine expelled from the body. Used mainly as a weight loss aide, diuretics have been banned by the International Olympic Committee and other sports leagues.

Fat burners
Fat burners have recently arrived into the performance enhancing world. Ephedra- based products now lead the pack in negative publicity because recent studies show that ephedra-based products can lead to heart disease, strokes and even death.  Now the market touts ephedra-free performance enhancing drugs. But remember, these drugs are not regulated by the FDA prior to their release. The FDA will, after the drugs show an unfavorable or dangerous propensity, pull them off the market and claim they are now “dangerous even deadly.”

Some athletes will attempt to use these drugs and hope they don’t get caught doing so. If these athletes are involved in Olympic competition, the risk of using illegal substances comes with great accountability.

The IOC’s stance is that doping your body in a way that interferes with the normal process is akin to cheating. Therefore, any athlete caught with performance enhancing drugs in their system will be banned from competing.

You must ask yourself to allow your body to perform naturally; anything else might jeopardize  your career in sports or your life.