Danger of supplements merits swift action
Date: 20-11-2006
Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamUnited States |
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Young athletes' drive to excel steers some teenagers toward a life-altering hazard: using unproven bodybuilding supplements and performance-enhancing drugs.
That is the sobering message of the three-day Statesman Journal series that ends today. Based on two months of interviews with local coaches, athletes and others, the series shows how teens become easy marks for a nutritional-supplement industry that is free of government oversight.
All too often, these powders and pills, wafers and liquids are expensive but ineffective. The worst ones can damage the body and twist the mind. No victory is worth their use.
The Food and Drug Administration doesn't monitor them. The Salem-Keizer School District doesn't ban them. The Oregon Legislature failed to bar coaches from hawking them.
That must change. The seven-point plan in today's series outlines the way.
Leadership must come from school administrators, sports organizations and the state.
Senate President Peter Courtney and state Sen. Jackie Winters hold power as legislative leaders. The Salem lawmakers possess a passion for issues affecting young people and health. Courtney and Winters have the obligation to push supplement-education and -restriction legislation through the 2007 session.
Athletes, parents and coaches need better education. People look to coaches for advice about sports supplements, but coaches often are ill-prepared, reporter Alan Gustafson found. Some mistakenly assumed that the FDA certifies the products' safety. Some were unaware that doctors recommend against such supplements for adolescents.
The state should require coaches to complete educational programs about supplements. What's more, schools should invite physicians to lead informational sessions for athletes every year. Dr. Thad Stanford of Salem, the leader of the Oregon School Activities Association's sports medicine committee, told Gustafson he'd be happy to speak if asked -- but he has never been asked. Who better than doctors to drive home the damage that such substances can do to growing bodies?
Seeking outside grant money if necessary, local school districts can adopt the ATLAS and ATHENA training programs that have been piloted at Stayton High School. These programs teach boys and girls about the best bodybuilding tools -- food and exercise -- in an enjoyable, team-centered way. They would reinforce the anti-supplement message with skills that can last a lifetime.
The Oregon Healthy Teen Survey, and local school districts' health surveys, must be updated with questions about creatine and other sports supplements. It is hard to take a problem seriously when the public has no idea of its scope. Coaches' estimates of supplement use ranged from 1 percent to 20 percent of their football players. Better data could help the community find solutions.
Backed by the state, school districts should adopt policies that make it clear to parents, students and coaches: Performance-enhancing products are not acceptable for student athletes. There is no excuse for school staff or coaches to sell nutritional supplements to students, as happened in Eugene in 2003.
At the federal level, Rep. Darlene Hooley and other members of Oregon's congressional delegation should push to expand the FDA's regulatory powers. Products that look like pharmaceutical drugs and claim to act like them should be held to the same high standards as drugs.
It takes a lot to counter the advertising of a $2-billion-per-year supplement industry, plus teens' natural desire to grow swift and strong. Oregonians might have been slow to catch on to the dangers of supplements, but we cannot be slow to act.
