If student-athletes are so enamored by supplements, what can an athletics department do to ensure the student-athletes' safety and prevent a positive drug test?

First, don't underestimate supplements' appeal and role in our athletics culture, say most of the experts.

Next, get your most powerful influences -- your coaches -- on board. Mike Perko, associate professor and coordinator of the health education program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, has studied the many reasons student-athletes take supplements, and coaches are a strong influence.

"The AD needs to understand the athlete is influenced by a number of people, first of all the coach," Perko said. Perko also points to a survey by supplement retailer GNC and Momentum Media, the publisher of Training and Conditioning Magazine and Coaching Management Magazine, which shows that 80.9 percent of collegiate and high-school coaches surveyed find themselves talking to their athletes on a regular basis about nutrition and that 43 percent of coaches actually make recommendations to their athletes about what specific products to take.

(To Perko's dismay, the survey also showed that 87 percent of the coaches believed supplements were safe for their athletes, and 92 percent believe that athletes are turning to supplements now more than ever. The survey itself is available on the GNC Web site.)

"Another strong player is the athletic trainer," Perko said. "Unlike most coaches, they have taken nutrition courses and they have a lot of face time with the athletes. Their influence is incredibly strong."

Rachel Olander, resource specialist at The Center for Drug Free Sport, agrees that athletics directors should work to ensure that coaches and administrators are on the same page.

"Make sure coaches aren't undermining your efforts to educate student-athletes about supplements, and make sure you have no distributors on your campus who are coaches," Olander said. (See related sidebar on athletics department supplement endorsement and distribution.)

Also be aware that, because of supplements' position in our culture, scare tactics don't work with student-athletes, Olander said.

"Expand your education programs beyond scare tactics. Stress to athletes that it is their decision to put something in their body, and they will be held accountable for it," Olander said, noting that student-athletes often respond well to that challenge.

"Student-athletes will examine labels (on foods) and look at fat content very carefully, all the while assuming that their supplements are OK and harmless. Point that inconsistency out to them," she said. "Be sure to inform student-athletes that products can be contaminated, that supplements have different ingredients in them and that the terms 'all-natural' and 'completely safe' are simply not the same.

"Stress to athletes that salespeople will lie to them in the interests of making money, and that salespeople are not trained to offer advice on what's banned."

Be sure to give the Resource Exchange Center contact information to student-athletes (www.
drugfreesport.com/REC), and keep a current list of banned substances on display in the athletics department. Also be sure student-athletes understand that "related compounds" might mean that something like a relative of ephedra is banned as well, Olander said.

Frank Uryasz, director of The Center for Drug Free Sport, also points out that athletics departments need to have a dietary supplement policy on campus that's based on sound science, and student-athletes should meet with nutritionists to determine their needs and how to meet them through food, a daily multivitamin and carbohydrate-replacement drinks.

"A nutritionist who understands athletes can be really valuable to an athletics department," he said. "We're really trying to get people to rethink their nutrition, and there are simple things they can do. We need to start talking about alternatives to supplements."

Ingredients can change

The athletics department at Washington State University has gone so far as to form a committee to review supplements and approve a list of them for student-athletes.

The committee consists of team physicians, athletic trainers, strength coaches, nutritionists and athletics administrators, and so far the list of approved products is very small: Gatorade, PowerBar, Cliff Bar and Boost meal replacement -- all products found in an average grocery store.

"What we're telling athletes is that this list is 100-percent approved," said Bill Drake, director of athletic training services at Washington State. "So every athlete knows, 'OK, this is approved and everything else is outside that.' We're extremely clear."

In fact, a dietician at Washington State put together a bulletin board for student-athletes showing the few approved products on one side and other products on the other side with a skull and cross bones.

The committee was formed because so many student-athletes were bringing products in to the athletic training staff and asking for advice.

"I think bringing the supplement in to you is a good sign," Drake said. "We encourage student-athletes to come in and ask questions. "What we found, though, is that student-athletes were asking, 'If the trainer here says its OK, is Washington State approving it?' So we went to a system where we really are approving some products."

Though they haven't approved many products, they've reviewed many many more, Drake said.

Any products the committee endorses also will be continually tested, Drake said, because supplement companies are always reformulating their products.

"You have to be careful endorsing a product because some of them can change so fast," he said. "We're seeing that now with energy drinks. One day they don't have ephedra, and it seems like the next day they do. For that reason, we have held off endorsing any."

And the committee members are constantly reminded that the companies are in it for the profit, with sales taking precedence over most everything else.

"Recently, there was a company with a good product that was legal, fell within the NCAA protein rule, everything was fine. Then the company started including samples of another product with a derivative of a human-growth hormone, which is banned, in the packets it was sending the athletes," Drake said. That was the end of the relationship with that company.

In another instance, the committee reviewed an "energy" drink that did not have ephedra on the label. An independent test of the product turned up ephedra in its contents.

"When we contacted the company and asked them about it, they said, 'Oh, it's not in there anymore.' And I explained to the company president that we could never trust them again because that ingredient was never on their label in the first place," Drake said.

"(Both instances were) a good reminder to us that we have to be very careful what we put our institutional name behind. All companies are there to sell their product. We are there to protect the student-athlete."

-- Kay Hawes