As high school football players across the state report for pre-season workouts officials with the Iowa High School Athletic Association are warning against the use of nutritional supplements. There have been several football related deaths the past couple of weeks, including a Northwestern University player who reportedly may have been taking a supplement which included ephedrine. Alan Beste is the wellness coordinator for the Iowa Association.Beste says while creatine and andro have received most of the recent attention, ephedrine was a concern of several schools in Iowa a few years ago. He says ephedrine artificially raises a person’s heart rate and blood pressure. He says there’s no proof that it does anything though to improve a person’s performance in athletic contests.Beste says a couple of years ago the Board in Control adopted a position statement which said school personnel should not dispense any type of drug or nutritional supplement without the consent of parents or physicians.Beste says testing is expensive and can’t be conducted for “nutritional supplements”. He says the best approach for the association is to communicate with coaches, and he says the Association has tried to do that every year. Beste says beware of labeling and that scientists feel several nutritional supplements should be classified as drugs.And Beste says ephedrine is one of the supplements that scientists feel should be labeled a drug.
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