Investigation of the content of anabolic steroids in food supplements used in sports practice

Abstract

The goal of this study is to establish the presence or absence of anabolic androgenic steroids in food supplements implemented in sports practice, to assess the health risk from intake of food supplements with quality and content discrepancies in conflict with the recommendations. The authors analysed 23 samples of food supplements by using liquid chromatographic methods. The presence/absence of substances with steroid structure was determined by considering the resulting chromatograms and using reference substances. The analysis of the resulting data showed that 11 out of 23 samples of food supplements did not contain anabolic steroid substances, while different amounts of androgenic steroid substances were identified in the other 12 samples. The results from the analyses confirmed the hypothesis formulated by the authors for possible presence of undeclared steroid ingredients in food supplements, and enabled the following conclusion: more than half of the tested food supplements contained undeclared anabolic steroids, all banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and their number in one of the samples could be more than one. The authors also revealed that the information on the product label and package concealed the undeclared ingredients of the food supplement and claimed for high efficacy and safety. Highlights The findings of the analyses with chromatographic methods confirmed the hypothesis set by the authors for the possible presence of undeclared steroid ingredients in food supplements (FS) and point to the following highlights: More than half of the tested FS (52.2%) contained undeclared anabolic steroids and their number in one of the samples could be more than one (sample 16 contained 9 steroid substances). The label and product package information conceal the undeclared ingredients of the food supplement and claim high efficacy and safety. All anabolic steroids detected in the composition of the tested FS have been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).