Resources

Online resources relevant to drugs in sport

The World Anti-Doping Agency leads the collaborative worldwide movement for doping-free sport

Additional information can be obtained through National Anti-Doping Organisations such as:

The World Anti-Doping Code is the fundamental and universal document upon which the World Anti-Doping Program in sport is based

The WADC is used in association with International Standards which provide technical and operational details relating to the anti-doping program.

WADA publish a number of useful online resources including:

The Court of Arbitration in Sport is an independent institution involved in resolving legal disputes in the field of sport, through arbitration. Cases, dealt with by CAS, involving doping in sport can be accessed.

Online databases and search engines relevant to research publications on drugs in sport

Databases and search engines that will find abstracts (and some full papers) include:

Biomedical publications search engine. Covers all of Medline

PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources.

Search engine using all resources of Google. Remarkably effective.

Offers more than a quarter of the world's scientific, medical and technical information online.

Publishes 250 peer-reviewed open access journals.

Library and database of publications. Fully searchable.

Formerly Nutritiongate. Abstracts database of over 500,000 abstracts, including material from serials, conference proceedings, theses, and reports.

Covers almost every sport-science publication there has ever been.

From the Institute for Scientific Information. Has links to all articles citing a given article, and saves references directly into Endnote.

Online Journals relevant to drugs in sport

Some Journals make some or all of their content freely available online, while others restrict access to paying subscribers. Some provide free access to papers when they are more than 12 months old. Key journals relating to drugs in sport include:

Online databases for checking the prohibited status of drugs and supplements

It is important that athletes and athlete support personnel check the prohibited status of drugs and substances that are found in medicines and supplements. There are a number of online databases through which such checks can be made:

For prescription and over-the-counter medicines:

For supplements:

Information on dietary supplements

The US FDA Web Pages are usually a good starting point for dietary supplement information. Several different parts of the site contain relevant information, including the following:

Part of the US Food and Drugs Administration

Consumer information, including alerts and product warnings

Overview of regulations

Various resources relating to allowable health claims for food products

Other Federal Government Links:

US Government site with enormous amount of information

Provides independent testing results online about vitamins, supplements, and nutrition products to consumers and healthcare providers

Commercial quality assurance programme for sports nutrition products, suppliers to the sports nutrition industry, and supplement manufacturing facilities

Information on legislation can be found at:

The European Food Safety Authority. Large amount of supporting information.

The 1994 Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994

A review of US supplements legislation including the 1994 DSHEA and subsequent developments

Links to sports news

There are some excellent news websites covering sport, including most of the major television channels and newspapers. While some of these focus primarily on local (ie national) events, others take an international perspective: both may be useful, depending on what you are looking for.

Useful news sites include:

This has an international section in various languages as well as the domestic version. Even the domestic version provides a broad international coverage.

Extensive resources, including online magazine.

Claims to be the worldwide leader in sports, but the focus is on NFL, MLB, NBA, College Football, College Basketball scores. Little news from outside the US.

Also very American oriented – not only news on US sports like baseball, Nascar etc, but also "swimsuit" section!

Home page of the International Olympic Committee. Enormous resources, including photo and video archive. Look at the “Documents link” for access to many historical references.

Home page of FIFA, governing body of football. Everything you need to know about football

Home page of the IAAF, governing body of track and field athletics.

FINA is the international governing body of swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water swimming

Information for travelling athletes and teams (including healthcare professionals)

International travel for training and competition is part of the normal life of many athletes. Travel is rewarding, but brings some challenges. Managing these challenges is essential to maximise the rewards and minimise the risks.

General Travel advice

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government provides extensive advice on a very wide range of topics for most destinations around the world. The site is updated daily and includes terrorist warnings, health and safety issues, money, etc and even includes a specific section on travel for sporting events.

Travel fatigue and jet lag

Jet lag occurs when the body clock is disrupted by crossing a number of time zones in a short space of time. The symptoms can include fatigue, disorientation and an inability to sleep.

For a review paper on jet lag and sport published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, click here.

Environmental challenges

Competitions often take place at environmental extremes, and athletes need to be aware of issues related to competitions in the heat, cold or at altitude. The following sites offer some useful advice and resources.

The stated goal of the Zunis Foundation is to make sports safer and more enjoyable, and the Zunis Foundation supports research into sports-related health issues, with a focus is on exercise-related heat illness, with special emphasis on studies of weather patterns which may promote illness. Extensive resources on this site, but a somewhat odd mixture of information. You could spend days browsing here.

For a review on acute mountain sickness from the Journal of Travel Medicine, click here.

Health issues

Anyone planning international travel should be fully informed about the potential health hazards of the countries they are travelling to and learn how to minimise any risk to health. This is especially true for athletes and teams who travel for training and competition – minor infectious illnesses can seriously disrupt a training camp and prevent participation in competitions. Forward planning, appropriate preventive measures and careful precautions are essential to reduce the risks.

World Health Organisation report that provides information on the main health risks for travellers.

Regularly updated alerts on disease outbreaks all over the world, together with advice for travellers about staying safe.

Commercial site offering (for a small fee) customised health travel advice.

Website of the US Centers for Disease Control. Enormous resources as you would expect from the US Govt, including travel alerts, travel-related diseases, country-specific advice, etc.

The Journal of Travel Medicine offers much useful information. Full content from 1994 is free.