“The Heavy Weight Fight” – Extreme Dangers of Bodybuilding Supplements
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Alyssa DiEdwardoAugust 03, 2009 8:08 AMBodybuilding has been known as an Extreme Sport, because it is associated with extreme diets, rigorous weight lifting and rigorous competitions. Famous names such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, and Charles Atlas come to mind. However with the aggressive marketing of dietary “natural” supplements to speed up results or create short cuts to the perfect physical condition, an unhealthy “opportunity” exists to market and sell dangerous supplements that have slipped under the radar of the FDA. As seen in the weight loss supplement industry, with the harmful effects of ephedra and related deaths, we are seeing the same with anabolic steroids. But like “The Night of the Living Zombies” these supplements get reformulated and remarketed and spun out again onto the shelves of health foods stores as “safe and natural.”
Bodybuilding, which once was for the chosen few, has become so mainstream that every young person is being told they not only can, but should, engage in this severe sport. Products designed to convince us that anyone can achieve a bodybuilder’s physique with “a “just add water” approach and the “magic” of modern pharmaceuticals..
This has not gone entirely unnoticed by the FDA and under the New Rule and current Obama administration the newly nominated commissioner Margaret Hamburg warnings are now being posted to alert the public that body building products marketed as containing steroids or steroid-like substances should be discontinued immediately.
In a recent Public Health Advisory (PHA), the FDA announced a warning to consumers to avoid using bodybuilding supplements claiming to contain steroids, steroid-like substances, steroid alternatives and hormone products.
However the FDA warning did not list specific product ingredients and the overly broad warning creates confusion and suspicion toward all “body building supplements”. These compounds are not regulated by the FDA and it is difficult to determine what products are safer than others or which manufactures are more trustworthy. In the release it is stated that all the products marketed for the claims of body enhancing, increasing muscle mass, alternatives to anabolic steroids for increasing muscle mass and strength and “promoted to athletes to improve sports performance and to aid in recovery from training and sporting events” are all included in the warning posts.
This appears to have been designed to dissuade the public to completely steer away from all products because the consumer can not determine the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements under DSHEA. Reading between the lines the FDA acknowledges that aside from sending out a “broad warning” there is nothing that they can do to recall or ban dangerous products timely and that more than ever the buyer should beware. No one will disagree that the FDA has failed miserably and allowed unscrupulous manufactures to market and sell dangerous products but the question remains what can be done about it now?
The FDA’s positions on these substances, containing synthetic steroids are frequently marketed as dietary supplements, but they are NOT dietary supplements. Instead they are unapproved drugs that have not been reviewed by the FDA for safety and effectiveness. Systems most often associated with the use of these dietary supplements include: nausea, weakness or fatigue, fever, abdominal pain, chest pain, shortness of breath, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes) or brown/discolored urine precursors to liver injury, kidney failure, stroke, and hormone-associated adverse effects, such as blood clots, including pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis.
In a recent warning the FDA set forth that “Due to the potentially serious health risks associated with using these types of products, the FDA recommends that consumers immediately stop using all body building products that claim to contain steroids or steroid-like substances.”