The objective of the present study was to describe the prevalence of medicine and dietary supplements use in athlete who participated in the mandatory doping controls of the VII South American Sports Games, which took place in four Brazilian cities. One issue considering the doping control and relative to substances used in the days that preceded the competition was statistically analyzed. The authors analyzed data collected from 234 athletes of 25 sports participating in the Games, being these athletes 136 males and 98 females, distributed among the 13 participating countries. According to the questionnaire conducted in the doping control, 44% athletes informed some substances used up to three days before the competition. The medications were classified into non-steroidal anti inflammatory (NSAI) (24.8%), analgesics (15.9%), antibiotics (4.3%), cold medicine (3%) and other medicines (19.3%). Moreover, 50% of athletes reported the use of dietetic supplements, being this group divided into vitamins (39.7%), minerals (21.9%), amino acids (18.9%) and other substances (13.3%). The authors concluded that there was an overuse of antiinflammatory and analgesic medication in many sports modalities, which raises a concern in terms of control of symptoms of the athletes in competitions. Besides that, there was an important use of dietary supplements without specific indication. Such fact may cause an eventual adverse analytical finding in the control of doping by contamination or manipulation.
Games; Athletes; Use of medication; Dietary supplements; Doping
