Sports and dietary supplements, the largest segment of a new wave of medical advances, are raising questions in the medical world.
According to Katherine Beals, an assistant professor of nutrition, dietary supplements contain vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs and other botanicals. They are merely intended to supplement the diet.
But Americans are looking to these supplements for a "miracle in a bottle," she said, which has caused several problems.
"As a nation, we are witnessing a large and rapid increase in the prevalence of obesity, with an estimated 61 percent of Americans currently overweight or obese," Beals said.
The supplement industry makes $30 billion a year from Americans looking for the "quick fix." Because of these gullible consumers, Beals said, America's diet industry attracts a large number of "quacks" and other pseudo-scientists.
Dietitians at the University of Michigan agree. The primary problem with these new supplements, they say, is that they are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"It's important to recognize that many of these things have not been studied adequately," said Dr. Edward Wojtys, director of the University of Michigan Health System's MedSport and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the university's medical school. "We don't have long-term studies on what they do to the body, so it really is a little bit like Russian roulette."
"The consequences may turn out to be dire," said Dr. David Marshall, a clinical instructor in the University of Michigan's Department of Pediatrics and a physician at the Brighton Health Center. "More and younger athletes than ever before are imitating their professional sports heroes by using outlawed drugs and unproven supplements to pump up their bodies and their game."
According to a University of Michigan news release, research on the side effects of banned substances, such as anabolic steroids and over-the-counter products such as creatine and androstenedione, have only been tested on adults.
When the studies were administered a few years ago, doctors did not worry about teens taking these substances.
Beals said the media is to blame for the increased supplement use.
"Promotions for both good and bad products are found daily in newspaper and magazine ads and television infomercials," Beals said. "The advertisements accompany products sold in stores, on the Internet and through mail-order catalogs."
Marshall said consumers may think over-the-counter products are safe because they see professional athletes wearing the products' logos. They are also often easily available at vitamin, drug and grocery stores.
But they are not safe, Marshall said. Performance enhancers can cause teens' growth plates - the flexible, stretching regions in bones - to fuse at an accelerated pace and prematurely stunt height.
High school seniors and other young athletes are not the only ones partaking in the supplement revolution. Beals said her research also found diet scams target senior citizens.
"Older people want to feel like they did when they were young," she said.
According to research conducted at the University of Michigan, glucosamine and chondroitin are two legal substances used by older adults. They are used to protect their joints, damaged knees and shoulders.
Based on what researchers know so far, these two supplements won't harm the body.
"The bad news is there is little to no documented benefit to using them," Wojtys said.
"Every year, hundreds of people are injured permanently or die at the hands of people hawking fraudulent diet products," Beals said. "You don't know what you are getting in a bottle. You could get sugar in a pill, or it could be something toxic."
The best way to avoid the problems associated with these supplements is to become a "smart shopper," Beals said.
"Becoming a smart shopper isn't so much about the places to shop as it is about being knowledgeable and aware of the gimmicks used by nutrition quacks to lure you into buying their products," she said.
Beals said dangerous supplements have some tell-tale signs, such as half-truths, testimonials, anecdotes, unpublished or uncited studies, buzzwords or pseudo-medical jargon, secret formulas, quick results and missing or questionable credentials.