Consensus Statement on Dietary Supplements for Athletes

[Jinzang]

The IOC has issued a consensus statement on dietary supplements for athletic performance. It says which supplements have good evidence for their effectiveness. The conclusion says:

Dietary supplements can play a small role in an athlete’s sports nutrition plan, with products that include essential micronutrients, sports foods, performance supplements, and health supplements all potentially providing benefits. Some supplements, when used appropriately, may help athletes to meet sports nutrition goals, train hard, and stay healthy and injury free. A few supplements can directly enhance competition performance. However, it takes considerable effort and expert knowledge to identify which products are appropriate, how to integrate them into the athlete’s sports nutrition plan, and how to ensure that any benefits outweigh the possible negative side effects.

 

[Vince]

That's one thing I always tell people that ask me the question, what's my best supplement. Eating properly is the number one supplement for everyone.

 

[Dave B.]

This is really interesting, basically they say caffeine, creatine, bicarbonate of soda, Beta-alanine, and Nitrate have some effects. I have never even heard of Nitrate supplements, but I haven't paid attention to the latest "supplement scene" for a while, since for the longest time any supplement has simply been salt, creatine, caffeine, and some form of Niacin to give people a "tingling sensation" so they say to themselves "Hey this is working."

In my personal experience these things actually work:

• Testosterone, of course. After a few months on TRT my strength has improved, body composition improved, and muscle mass returned to my upper body in particular. This is more of a necessity than a "supplement" but whatever.

• Gels with caffeine. I experienced this in my distance-running days. After running for 45 minutes to 1 hour, my body would feel depleted. Ingesting a gel, particularly the ones laced with caffeine, gave me enough kick to run for another 45 minutes. Basically you can keep ingesting these things and keep running. My wife was a marathoner in the old days when runners fueled up on pasta the night before and a banana the morning of the race. When gels were invented her race time dropped by 45 minutes. These things work for any endurance sport.

• I know cyclists and other distance athletes who rely on the salt/electrolyte tablets/cubes for the same reason.

• Creatine works but it is a very mixed bag for me. I like it for weight training and it helps my muscles get a pump, and it might have been the only thing that helped me get some strength gains when I had Low-T. However, creatine was horrible when I was a runner. I experimented with it and it made my feet and ankles swell up so bad that I could not run at all until it was flushed out of my system.