Dietary Supplements- Newsletter for Rice University

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Hello Rice Owls!

Whether you’re looking for a dietary supplement to get an energy boost, to support recovery post practice/game, or to modify body composition, you must be aware of the safety concerns that come with consuming these products. As an athlete, unsafe dietary supplement practices can make you fail drug tests and more importantly affect your health. So, take the following points into consideration when buying these supplements.

A dietary supplement:

· Is not regulated by the food and drug administration (FDA) which means there’s no certainty if the product contains exactly what the label says it contains.

· Uses the term “Proprietary blend” which contains the total amount of the blend ingredients, but not the individual amounts. So, you don’t really know how much of an ingredient that might not be supported by science, you’re consuming. There’s also no way to know if the product has been adulterated with compounds since they could be hidden in this section of the facts panel.

· Is required to list only the nutrients that have an amount greater than “zero”. However, sometimes even small traces (less than zero) of certain ingredients can be reflected as a positive result on a drug test or worse, make you sick.

· Displays Daily Value (DV) which is the number of nutrients that are recommended to not be exceeded each day. %DV tells you the amount of a specific nutrient that is in a single serving of a dietary supplement. In a Facts Panel, 5% DV of a nutrient is considered low and 20% DV or more of a nutrient per serving is considered high. However, keep in mind that you will see no %DV established for the ingredients in the proprietary blend section of the facts panel which prevents you from knowing if the amounts of that ingredient you’re consuming are potentially toxic.

So what can you do?

Choose dietary supplements that are NSF- or Informed Sport-Certified as they ensure that there’s congruency between label and product, and test for +250 substances that are banned in sports, respectively. Also, be on the lookout for claims that read “100% pure”, “Pharmaceutical grade”, “Free of Banned Substances”, and “natural” as these are not regulated by the government.

For more information on sports nutrition Follow us at Rice Owls Sports Nutrition (@riceowlssportsnutrition) • Instagram photos and videos

Dietetic Intern

Astrid Zuluaga Lopez