Sports Supplements: Rising Usage, Trends, and Potential Dangers
By: Samir Lohana
The usage of sports supplements has significantly risen over the last decade. Common supplements that are typically used are protein, creatine, and pre-workout powders. All of them have varying uses, but they are generally utilized to enhance athletic performance and physique. Relatively novel to the market, the long and short-term effects of these supplements are not very well known yet since they have only recently been introduced to the market quite heavily. The sports nutrition market was valued at 40.0 billion USD in 2021 and will continue to grow at an annual rate of 8.6% in the near future (GVR, 2022). To put this into perspective, the compound annual growth rate of the booming technology industry is lower at 7.23% (GNW, 2022). The explosion of the sports supplement industry warrants an investigation into the potential dangers of the supplements in order to keep the safety of their users as a priority.
Figure 1. U.S. Sports Nutrition Market projected annual growth trends from 2020-2030. Expected to grow 8.6% annually for this decade.
The demographic most at risk for abusing sports supplements is young gym users in their teens or early 20s (Hilkens, 2021). Often, this demographic is most at risk for peer pressure since they are young and impressionable. Athletics are a common way for teens to compare themselves to others, and they can feel inadequate when seeing their peers accelerate in this realm of endeavor. Furthermore, teens consume more social media content than any previous generation (Curtis, 2019). They are likely to see celebrities or influencers that have perfect physiques that bring down their own body image (Hilkens, 2021). As a result, young gym users often feel the need to take supplements to accelerate their progress. This vulnerability can be exploited by fitness influencers that can manipulate at-risk individuals into buying their own product line of supplements that may not be of the highest quality and may not actually work that well.
Figure 2. Most cited reasons for consumers using supplements in Portugal.
Depending on the type of supplement, some of them demonstrate results. For example, protein powders and creatine are well-studied supplements that provide improvement (Pasiakos, 2015; Hall, 2021). Since consuming protein can increase muscular synthesis, many gym users take it to maximize gains in muscular strength (Pasiakos, 2015). Creatine causes water retention in the muscles that allow for more energy during workouts by increasing the amount of Adenosine Triphosphate in the body (Hall, 2021). However, when it comes to other supplements such as pre-workout, beta-alanine, and weight gainers, the science can become inconclusive, and, hence, the quality of these ingredients may be compromised.
These types of supplements have many harsh chemicals in the system that are hazardous to the body. Since these supplements do not require FDA approval, suppliers do not have to disclose the harmful ingredients present in them (Harty, 2018).
Sports supplements have a variety of risks associated with their consumption. For example, one of the “safer” supplements, protein powder, still has “limited data on the possible side effects” from long-term usage of protein powder. For instance, ingesting protein powders for people with lactose intolerance can cause “digestive stress” and many protein powders are not healthy since they are “high in added sugars and calories” (Harvard Health, 2022). Moreover, excessive supplement usage can be harsh on the kidneys since the hazardous compounds found within these chemicals need to be filtered out of the body as well (Vasconcelos, 2021). Long-term testing still needs to be done due to which the consumption of these supplements must be done with extreme caution. Unknown substances in supplements can also cause competitive athletes to unintentionally fail drug tests. Certain supplements have been demonstrated to have contaminants that are prohibited for consumption in certain sports leagues. Athletes that take certain supplements can hence fail anti-doping drug testing as a result of such banned substances found in supplements due to the lack of strict regulations in sports supplement production and distribution (Matthews, 2017).
Sports supplements need to be studied more and companies need to be held accountable for providing quality products to consumers. Users should be more aware of the dangers of these supplements and should only purchase them from well-known, trustworthy suppliers by doing their own research. More information should be distributed to allow consumers to make an educated decision as to whether or not they feel the need to take these supplements. This pressing issue needs immediate action to be taken upon it since the usage trends are growing at an alarming rate.
References
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Images
Ruano, J., & Teixeira, V. H. (2020). Prevalence of dietary supplement use by gym members in Portugal and associated factors. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-020-00342-z
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Sports nutrition market size, share report, 2022-2030. Sports Nutrition Market Size, Share Report, 2022-2030. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/sports-nutrition-market
