Lab Tested Doesn't Mean Shit When It Comes To Supplements
Or That Time The UFC Tried To Hoodwink Us About Supplement Labels
Let me start by saying that I don’t think Nate Diaz knowingly took a SARM ahead of his scheduled fight with Jorge Masvidal. But you know what? What I think, what you think, what anyone thinks doesn’t matter because his drug test showed elevated levels for LGD-4033 or Ligandrol, which can reportedly help improve lean body mass and muscle strength. It is the SARM that landed NBA player Joakim Noah a twenty game suspension in 2017.
Diaz, who has long been a critic of doping in MMA, said that he did not take the product and demanded the UFC clear his name. The UFC, who would have lost a metric shit-ton of cash had the main event of UFC 244 been scratched, did just that in an almost comical fashion.
Hunter Campbell, who is the UFC’s chief business officer, told media members (via The Athletic), “The supplement was labeled ‘organic, vegan-approved, lab-tested, non-GMO and made in the USA, in addition to listing every vitamin that they said was in it. Very clearly, LGD-4033 was not listed.”
UFC senior vice president of athlete health and performance, Jeff Novitzky, showing that he too got the talking points before the media event, parroted the claims of his compatriot, “It’s as clear a case of an unintentional ingestion (as we’ve seen), where the athlete did absolutely nothing wrong, felt they were using a safe product. The product itself, on the label had ‘lab tested, organic.’ It wasn’t one of these supplements when you look at it and, on its face, it’s (called) ‘Rhino Testosterone 5000.’ This was about as benign a supplement as you can get.”
The idea that lab-tested, organic means something when it comes to supplements is laughable. Supplements are not regulated by the FDA, which means they can have pretty much anything in them and the label claims can mean something — or not.
Harvard Medical School published a piece in February entitled, “What’s in Your Supplements?” In that story, the author, Robert H. Shmerling M.D., wrote, “The supplement industry is not regulated the way prescription drugs are. The ingredients on the label may not accurately reflect what’s actually in the supplement.”
Shmerling also pointed out that sometimes the labels on the supplements do not list all the ingredients, “often the hidden ingredient is added in order to enhance the effect of the supplement. For example, banned stimulants have been found in many weight loss supplements.”
He also added, “there is little oversight to confirm the purity of the ingredients or the accuracy of the label.”
Shmerling pointed to a 2018 study that showed that between 2007 and 2016 the FDA issued warnings on 776 dietary supplements that contained contaminants. Some of those supplements were dinged for “steroids or drugs with steroid effects in supplements marketed as muscle builders.” The study revealed that 20 percent of the supplements contained more than one unapproved ingredient.
Now, onto the lab tested and organic claims, which both Campbell and Novitzky made sure to mention.
Consumer Reports published a story in 2016 on supplement labels. The story looked at the “All Natural” claims found on supplement labels and wrote, “This doesn’t mean ‘organic,’ ‘free of genetically modified organisms,’ or ‘no artificial ingredients,’ or that a product is safe to take. Instead, it can mean whatever a manufacturer wants it to mean—or nothing at all.”
You catch that last part, the claims on the label “can mean whatever a manufacturer wants it to mean—or nothing at all.”
The “lab tested” could mean anything. It could mean the supplement was lab tested to make sure it contained a steroid or a SARM. Novitzky has to know this. The fact is he threw a smoke bomb to distract everyone and acted as if that phrase carries weight. It doesn’t.
The other thing that’s missing — and I’m sure this was no accident — is the actual name of the supplement Diaz was taking. Why? Well, if media folks don’t know the name, they can’t do any journalism work and research that product or the manufacturer of the product. Another absent thing was the actual numbers from Diaz’s test, again, not an accident.
The UFC wants us to take everything its representatives say as truth, but we have been lied to enough by the UFC that we shouldn’t accept anything the promotion says as truth unless we can see proof of what the UFC is telling us. Novitzky and Campbell didn’t offer any proof, only meaningless catchphrases.
C’mon Now…
