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 Winnipeg weightlifter
Theresa Brick recently tested positive for the banned
substance nandrolone, and she says an over-the-counter supplement
she bought may have caused the doping infraction. Today, the
Winnipeg Free Press examines the everexpanding world of
nutritional supplements and the potential problems for high-performance
athletes who don't watch what they eat. National coach Bruce Pirnie calls over-the-counter nutritional supplements a minefield what weightlifters such as Theresa Brick and other high performance athletes must tiptoe through - wihtout a mine detector. Pharmacist, Lyall Meyers, one of the province's acknowledged experts on the topics and who stocks row upon row of the products in his drugstore on the corner of William Avenue and Isabel Street, says elite-level athletes know what they can take and what they can't. From the local drugstore and nutritional supplement superstores in Winnipeg to businesses on the World Wide Web such as Dave's Power Store and UltraLab Nutrition, makers of The Beast line of products, which feature packages graced by a massively muscular male gorilla - pump'em-up pills number in the thousands. Some, such as whey protein, are just that - muscle builders that are beneficial and harmless. Others, such as creatine, have established themselves as popular supplements among the world's most elite athletes at the amateur and professional level, all of them looking for an edge. Then there are the supplements in the fuzzy categories, many advertised as much for their libido-increasing claims as anything else; androstene-dione, human growth complex, tribulus terrestris, herbs such as ma huang (Chinese ephedra) and the newest rage, ribose, among many others. Tribulus terrestris is a herbal derivative and the main ingredient in a Bulgarian-manufactured product called Tribestan. It's the product Brick says may be responsible for her recent positive doping test for nandrolone and her subsequent two-year suspension by Weightlifting Canada.  The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport has warned all athletes: "Extreme caution should be taken when using herbal products, as they may contain banned stimulants not listed in the list of ingredients." Brick, 34, who has spoken to countless student athletes about the importance of drug-free sports, has protested her suspension, but with the Summer Olympics fast approaching, her chances of getting the supsension overturned at all - let alone soon enough to allow her to qualify for the Games - are slim. Nandrolone is an anabolic steroid. It's the same drug found in British sprinter Linford Christie and Canadian roller-hockey player Steve Vezina. It resulted in suspensions for both those athletes and many others in recent months - 343 in all, according to Dr. Jonathan Geiger, chairman of the provincial srugs in sport committee. Brick's husband and coach, Dennis Van Laeken, has said Brick bought the Tribestan at the GNC store in Polo Park and used it in the same way she used creatine - for recovery during heaving training sessions. Meyers also stocks it and was skeptical it could have cuase the positive drug test. "You're tempted to try something you think can be used and that you think is legal that may not be," he said. "If you do, you might be crossing a line." A steady stream of customers, many of them obviously bodybuilders or weightlifters, pored over his shelves for everything from whey protein to meal replacement formulas, creatine, HMB and beyond.  Meyers is considered
an expert on nutritional supplements by many in the bodybuilding
and high-performance athletics community in Winnipeg. He said
Brick had shopped at his store before. Many customers
seek his advice on what they should and shouldn't be using. He
has some simple counsel:"Don't believe anything you ever hear in the gym," he said. "ask questions, ask your pharmacist, read books - they can tell you alot. And don't look for it all right away. If you gain one per cent per monthm that's 12 per cent a year. Be satisfied with that."  Read the label, he suggests, although that's a contentious point in itself: Does the package contain only what the label says it does, in the amounts printed. Meyers said that for the mnost part, he beleives the listed ingredients are accurate. Whether they're there in the amounts suggested on the label is another matter. "Tribestan should be fine," he said. "I think what they list on there is what's in it. But if I was being careful, I'd stay away from it. You're running that edge. These athletes know what's good and what's not. You can't plead ignorance at that level." Pirnie, a friend of Brick's and head coach at the National Coaching Institute, suggests athletes make sure whatever supplements they're buying have a drug identification number, which Tribestan doesn't have. "The key thing is that unless the product has a drug identification number on it, you can't be sure of what you're buying," he said. "With all the combination of things out there, it's so difficult to decipher it's to the point where the athlete is taking their career into their own hands."  |
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