One expert and sports physician says this has led to people often forgetting that a healthy, varied diet and obtaining the necessary nutrients naturally remains the foundation of good health, rather than getting them in an isolated form at often much greater concentrations than is healthy.

The recent inaugural Enhanced Games, which permitted athletes to use performance-enhancing substances, has brought the issue under the spotlight, and scientists and media commentators have raised concerns about health and safety risks associated with encouraging performance-enhancing drug use.

More broadly, the use of dietary supplements has become increasingly common among recreational athletes and young people. Colorful packaging, promises of rapid results, and the impact of social media influencers endorsing the product all serve to create the impression that it is impossible to train effectively or maintain good health without various gels and pills and powders and capsules.

However, according to sports physician Pii Metsavas, before purchasing often expensive dietary supplements, people should think critically. Ultimately, a balanced diet should take precedence.

Talking to "Terevisioon," Metsavas did not deny dietary supplements their place, but stressed their use should be both justified and purposeful. "Dietary supplements are not inherently bad, but everything must be justified, evidence-based, and well-founded," she told the show.

In her view, society has reached the point where normal eating habits, if anything, seem more of a rarity than the daily use of supplements. "Sometimes it feels as though it is easier to take a nice little pill from a jar than to think about your diet," Metsavas remarked.

The doctor noted that amateur and elite athletes alike should first of all try to get the nutrients they need from regular food. The substances found in food interact with other nutrients and enzymes, influencing how the body absorbs them. "Food is a much more complex system than a single active ingredient out of a container," she explained.

Metsavas advised particular caution when it comes to supplements that make fantastic promises, for example of rapid muscle growth or weight loss. "If a supplement claims it can quickly turn you into a muscular bodybuilder or help you lose weight rapidly, it is for sure worth examining critically. In general, no genuinely safe dietary supplement can deliver quick results," she said. Dramatically accelerating the body's biological processes, as would be needed to achieve these effects, is not possible in any case, the sports doctor went on. "The human body is not an audiobook that can simply be played at double speed," she said as an analogy.

Young people are increasingly getting their information about dietary supplements from social media and from artificial intelligence (AI), Metsavas said, noting influencers who have not at least occasionally promoted a dietary product they use are, in her experience, an exception. "This has a huge influence on young people—what their coach uses, what they see elite athletes doing, or what social media recommends," she said.

The doctor also pointed out that these types of promotions do not necessarily mean the athletes endorsing them even actually use the products themselves. "There may be very lucrative sponsorship agreements behind it," Metsavas noted.

AI too can be misleading. Ahead of the "Terevisioon" interview, Metsavas said she also tried out AI for its recommendations on one supplement she had considered problematic. Initially, the AI tool the doctor queried had praised the product as a high-quality and effective supplement, and only then, after being pressed on more critical follow-up questions, did its assessment get more cautious. And this can be several questions into the interaction.

"If you asked it, for example, what to think about doses that exceed the recommended daily intake [of the active ingredient] by 5,000 percent, then the AI starts to get more critical. But most people never get to the seventh or eighth question," she said.

Greatest danger lies in stimulants

According to Metsavas, stimulant-containing products such as those found in "pre-workout"-type products pose the greatest risk to young people. "They may contain caffeine, fat-burning compounds, and other stimulants. If someone consumes them from several sources at the same time, the total amount can become very large," she warned.

Energy drinks, which have proliferated in range and variety in recent years, are another hazard.

Cocktails like these can cause serious health problems, in fact, and even pose a potential threat to life. "They can actually even lead to cardiac arrest," Metsavas stressed. She said that the risk is heightened among the young because some in this demographic are also often taking medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which themselves also often contain stimulants. "If you then add in an energy drink or an espresso on top of that, the outcome may not be a good one at all," she said.

The sports physician recommends learning how to properly read and understand supplement labels and ingredient lists. "The more ingredients a dietary supplement contains, the more questions it should raise," she said as a general rule of thumb.

Consumers should also pay attention to how much of the recommended daily intake a supplement provides, adding this should not exceed those recommended amounts by much. "Even for elite athletes, we are usually talking about perhaps 150 or 200 percent, not 2,000 or 5,000 percent," Metsavas noted.

At the end of the day, common sense was the best bet, Metsavas said. "We were gifted practical common sense for a reason; that has not gone anywhere—yet," Metsavas concluded.

Background:

The debut Enhanced Games took place on May 24 in Las Vegas, with swimming, athletics, and weightlifting competitions held. The permitted substances competitors could use are legal under U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, but may not be permitted under the competitors' sports' governing bodies' rules. Despite the name, several events, including in swimming, were won by competing "clean" athletes, who had not taken performance enhancing substances.

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