FRIDAY, Aug. 24, 2001 (HealthDayNews) -- College athletes are smoking, drinking and spitting tobacco a little less often than their compatriots were four years ago. But their use of amphetamines, anabolic steroids and ephedrine has gone up, according to a recently released study by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
This year's study was the fifth time in 20 years that the NCAA has measured substance abuse among 21,000 student athletes in member schools. The most disturbing part of the study: a sharp increase in the use of the NCAA-banned central nervous system stimulant, ephedrine.
Use of amphetamines and anabolic steroids, while marginally higher than four years ago, is nonetheless a minute percentage of the total. The use of amphetamines has fluctuated between 2 percent eight years ago and a little over 3 percent this year. Anabolic steroids were used by about 5 percent of student athletes in 1989, while only 1.4 percent claimed to use them this year. But that's up 0.3 percent over the previous study in 1997.
Ephedrine use, however, has increased from almost zero in 1993 to about 4 percent of student athletes this year. Ephedrine, the active agent of the herb ephedra (also called ma huang and a variety of other names) is derived from shrubs. Ephedra is in such widely available weight loss products as Metabolife and many other products that promise to boost energy or slim you down.
Last year, the Food and Drug Administration released research that, over two years, linked ephedrine to at least 10 deaths, over 100 reports of illness and various cases of high blood pressure, abnormal heartbeat and other such ailments. But the Ephedra Education Council has repeatedly said that products containing the herb or its alkaloid, ephedrine, are safe when used as directed.
College athletes seem to be cutting down on social drugs, the survey shows. Although almost 80 percent of student athletes had at least one drink of alcohol (legally or illegally) in the previous year, more than half say they have a drink or two every week. Almost none report using alcohol before a competition.
Hpwever, 60 percent of the student athletes believe that their use of alcoholic beverages has no effect on their athletic performance or general health.
The use of smokeless tobacco has declined substantially -- from almost 28 percent of athletes in 1989 to 17.4 percent this year. Although the rate of spit tobacco use remains high in several men's sports, its use has gone down. In 1989, 56.7 percent of baseball players surveyed admitted to using spit tobacco, but in 2001, the figure declined to 41 percent. In 1989, 39.5 percent of football players surveyed used spit tobacco; this year it was 28.9 percent.
After alcohol, the recreational drug of choice was clearly marijuana -- with 27 percent claiming to have used it at least once in the previous year. That number has held steady since 1989. Use of cocaine is at 1.7 percent, and fewer than 2 percent said they used psychedelics, including LSD.
Mary Wilfert, health and safety program coordinator for the NCAA, says she considers this study to be encouraging, because it shows that students are using drugs cautiously. The majority who chose not to use either the banned substances or the illegal social drugs say that they made this decision because they don't like the effects on their health or because using drugs goes against their ethical beliefs.
In the survey, most students said they used ephedrine, amphetamines or anabolic steroids "to improve performance" or "to lose weight." But the survey also asked a general question: Had students used some sort of nutritional supplement other than a multi-vitamin sometime in the previous year? Forty-two percent said yes.
Although that question sounds innocuous, Mike Perko, an assistant professor of health, physical education and recreation at University of North Carolina at Wilmington, doesn't think it's a softball. He points out that ephedrine can be found in over-the-counter fat burning supplements; and steroid-like compounds are key ingredients in some supplements that claim to bulk up athletes.
Perko, who is researching what motivates student athletes to take these supplements, believes ignorance and advertising are to blame -- lots of ads on TV, radio and the backs of magazines offer a beautiful body in return for popping a pill or drinking a shake.
And no one can really contradict that message, he says. "Parents, coaches, teammates are all highly influential, but not even coaches are trained in nutrition."
Perko also thinks that scare tactics are useless.
"These kids can't be scared," he says.
What To Do
Perko urges parents and coaches who want to keep athletes on the straight and narrow to educate themselves about supplements and insist that anyone else who deals with student athletes get a similar education. "If you don't want your tennis player taking ephedrine, you have to be involved. You have to learn what it is and why it's not any good, and then you can influence kids to stay away."
To see how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention viewed ephedrine, take a look at this 1996 report on almost 500 people who said they'd had a reaction from the alkaloid. Or take a look at this report from the Department of Health and Human Services.
