SUPPLEMENTS AND SPORTS FOODS Gregory Shaw, BHSc, and Louise M. Burke, OAM, PhD, APD, FACSM
INTRODUCTION
Sports dietitians typically take a food-first approach to meeting sports nutrition goals. Tis is a laudable focus because of the advantages related to expense, safety, and the potential to achieve a larger range of nutritional goals and health benefits from whole foods and well-planned meals. However, to operate successfully in this field, it is necessary to have an in-depth appreciation of the large range of supplements and sports foods that are marketed to athletes and coaches. At one level, this knowledge is necessary because at least some of these products can provide benefits, which may provide a small but critical part of an athlete’s performance plan. On another level, expert knowledge about supplements and sports foods is needed to gain the interest and respect of athletes and coaches because the marketing and allure around these products needs to be addressed with insight. Since there are hundreds of thousands of sports foods and supplements directed at athletes, it is impossible to undertake a summary of each. Te aim of this chapter is to provide a framework that allows the sports dietitian to deal with the larger picture of this challenging area of sports nutrition.
What Is a Supplement?
Do I need to take supplements to perform at my best? Many athletes and coaches expect a simple answer to this question because companies market their supplements to closely align with what many athletes and coaches believe are their needs. Because of the incredible range of supplement products, consumers need a system that can quickly identify products that would be beneficial for use and exclude others that are of little value or may cause problems. One difficulty with achieving such a system—and of working with sports supplements in general—is finding a working definition that adequately describes these products and their characteristics. An athlete’s idea of what constitutes a supplement may be different from that of a government agency regulating supplement use and can differ again from the views of a sports nutritionist. Supplements have been defined and categorized through a variety of characteristics, including the mode of action and form or function of the active ingredients, or via a regulatory definition; an overview of catego- rization methods is provided in Box 7.1 (page 134).