The investigation and assessment of Nutritional and Traditional Supplement products for content validity, contamination and adulteration

Nutritional supplements are used by competitive and recreational athletes of all ages. As a consequence the supplement industry has grown to meet the increasing demand. The regulation of the supplement industry is unrefined, which increases the risk of the nutritional supplements being contaminated. Contamination may be intentional, where the companies “spike” their products with an ergogenic aid, or unintentional. A consequence of contamination is that an athlete may fail a drug test after ingesting a contaminated supplement or there may be negative health consequences. Without adequate legislation it is difficult to control the industry and reduce the risk of contamination in the supplement. Objectives: To investigate the industry associated with commercially available nutritional and traditional supplements. These are in the five specific areas; (i) to review the regulations and legislations, and labelling and claims associated with nutritional products in the USA, European Union and South Africa, (ii) to assess the labelling and claims information on nutritional supplement products imported into and manufactured or assembled in South Africa, (iii) to assess using a survey questionnaire the container labelling and other sources of information that assist consumers of nutritional products in their purchasing decisions, (iv) to assess traditional commercial supplements for contamination and consistency of trace elements and heavy metals using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry, and (v) to assess the content of nutritional commercial supplements for steroids, stimulants and other compounds of interest using Tandem Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry.Methods: The thesis is divided into 6 Chapters. Chapter 1 describes the background to the problem and Chapter 2 reviews the existing legislation. In Chapter 3 the labelling and claims information on 40 nutritional supplements products are analysed, and the self-administered questionnaire determined what product label and other information influences consumers of nutritional supplements in their purchasing decisions. In Chapter 4 the consistency of trace elements and heavy metals are analysed in selected nutritional supplements using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. In Chapter 5 selected nutritional supplements are analysed for steroids, stimulants and other compounds using Tandem Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry. All the data of these sections are summarised in Chapter 6.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Division of Clinical Pharmacology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Gabriels, Gary Anthony

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Lambert, Mike
• Smith, Peter

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3281

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/3281