Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) has released the findings of a major survey of sports supplements available in the Australian online marketplace, revealing a significant and continuing risk for athletes.
In 2022, SIA commissioned Human and Supplement Testing Australia (HASTA) to purchase and analyse 200 sports supplement products available online in Australia.
The aim of the survey was to assess the likelihood of athletes accidentally purchasing a product containing one or more World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited Substances .
The findings are concerning:
- Of the 200 products tested, 35 per cent, around one in three, were found to contain one or more WADA Prohibited Substances. This demonstrates that the risk from sports supplements in Australia remains high.
- In this most recent survey, 57% of the positive products did not list the prohibited ingredients on their packaging or website, leaving athletes vulnerable to unknowingly breaching anti-doping rules. Products marketed as pre-workouts, fat burners and muscle builders were the most likely to be contaminated.
SIA Director of Research, and coauthor of the report, Dr Naomi Speers said the findings reinforced the agency's long-standing warnings about the risks associated with supplement use .
"Athletes need to understand that using supplements always carries risk," Dr Speers said.
"This study shows that more than one in three non-batch tested supplements purchased online in Australia contain prohibited substances. And most of those substances were not even listed on the label."
Many of the detected prohibited substances were naturally occurring compounds, with only two products containing high levels of synthetic stimulants .
"Products marketed for fat burning, muscle building or pre-workout are particularly risky," Dr Speers said.
"The compounds we identified could trigger a positive test result and lead to an anti-doping sanction. In many cases, athletes would have no way of knowing what they were taking."
Under anti-doping rules, athletes are strictly liable for any substance found in their system.
"These types of products are common and widely available, which might give athletes the false impression that they're safe to use," Dr Speers said.
"But due to issues like cross-contamination during manufacturing or undeclared ingredients, the risk of unintentional doping is high."
Dr Speers urged athletes to only use supplements that have been screened for prohibited substances by independent companies such as HASTA and Informed Sport, through a process known as batch testing.
"While no supplement is 100 per cent safe, batch-tested products significantly reduce the risk of contamination because an independent laboratory has already run some checks to see if the product contains a prohibited ingredient before it gets on the shelf," she said.
"We encourage athletes to check all their supplements by using the Sport Integrity app."
Athletes can download the free Sport Integrity app to find a list of more than 12,000 batch tested supplements sold in Australia and to check if a supplement they already own has been batch tested.
More than 100,000 Australians have already downloaded the app, and there are almost 7,000 supplement checks every month.
SIA's Acting Director of Education Gavin Whitehouse said the SIA app and athlete education is making a difference.
"The number of positive doping cases involving supplements has dropped significantly since the introduction of the Sport Integrity app and new education messaging - from seventeen cases in 2016, to zero in 2022 and 2023 , and one in 2024," Mr Whitehouse said.
"Athletes and sports have done a great job in taking the threat of supplements seriously in recent years, but this survey shows we need to continue to be vigilant when it comes to supplements."
SIA continues to urge athletes to make informed decisions and protect their sporting careers by avoiding high-risk products.
Find results of the survey here .
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