Supplements: assess the risk, assess the need
As an athlete you must know the risk with taking supplements.
It is vital you consider this message if you are using, or contemplating using, nutritional supplements. No one can guarantee that supplements are free from prohibited substances, and you may accidentally commit an Anti-Doping Rule Violation by taking them.
Assess the need, assess the risk
The supplement industry is difficult to regulate. No guarantee can be given that any supplement, including vitamins and minerals and herbal remedies, is free from prohibited substances.
UK Anti-Doping advises you to assess the need for the supplement itself, and assess the risk that the supplement contains a prohibited substance. It is important you take as many precautions as possible if you are using supplements and nutritional products.
There may be times when this choice is more difficult, such as when you are receiving pressure within a team environment, recovering from injury or trying to gain that edge to push your performance to the next level.
Informed Sport is an organisation which provides a risk-minimisation programme for sports nutrition products. If you choose to take supplements, it is important that when using the Informed Sport programme, you only buy from a batch that has been tested by them. However, please note that this still does not guarantee a supplement is completely free from prohibited substances as there can even be differences in ingredients within the one batch.
To read more about supplements, see the High Performance section.
Further nutritional information and advice is available from the English Institute of Sport.
