How are banned bodybuilding chemicals getting into sports supplements?

Australian freestyle swimmer Shayna Jack claims she's innocent - that she did not knowingly take the banned substance Ligandrol, but that it may have entered her body through a contaminated supplement.

Earlier this week, the news broke that Jack had tested positive in June, before competing at the world swimming championships in South Korea.

For many, it would have been the first they'd heard of Ligandrol and the class of drugs known as SARMs - Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators.

But in fact, more than a year ago, a combined triple j Hack and Background Briefing investigation discovered a booming market for Ligandrol and other SARMs, and led to America's so-called 'top steroid cop' warning of their influx into Australian professional and amateur sport.

Jeff Novitzky is a leading sports doping experts who made his name investigating disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong. He's now in charge of cleaning up the UFC mixed martial arts competition.

"The sports supplement industry has quite a few problems, and there's very common occurrences of these supplements being contaminated or in some cases purposefully spiked with really dangerous drugs," Jeff told Hack in April last year.

"It's a worldwide problem."

Shayna Jack's claim of a contaminated supplement is being investigated; without commenting on her specific case, the repeated warnings from national bodies such as ASADA as well as the number of athletes who argue this defence suggests there is a growing problem with contaminated supplements.

Australians are among the highest per capita consumers of vitamins, dietary supplements and sports nutrition in the world, and sales are booming.

Most supplements are perfectly safe, but within the many products there's a dizzying array of ingredients, and complex supply chains that wrap around the world.

So how do the drugs get into the supplements, and what are they?

How supplements can be contaminated

Supplements can be contaminated in two ways: intentionally or accidentally.

Although a supplement may be 'made in Australia', the raw materials (e.g. the protein powder) are often manufactured overseas in large facilities that supply bulk ingredients to hundreds of brands around the world.

According to Novitzky, who investigated supplement contamination in the US when he was with the FDA, in several cases the supply chain led back to Chinese labs that were also producing steroids and other banned substances.

"And I think that's where the problem and the issue originates," he said.

"How it works is the Chinese manufacturing facility will make a run of anabolic steroids.

Although these suppliers of bulk ingredients issue their customers with a 'paper audit' that guarantees the purity of product, most Australian brands don't do their own regular batch testing; they simply trust that what's on the label is what's in the barrels of white powder.

Regulatory authorities, also, don't do mandatory testing of source ingredients, or even of the finished product that goes on sale to the public.

Alongside accidental contamination, there's also a strong incentive for brands to secretly boost the strength of their product with performance enhancing drugs, and distinguish themselves in a market flooded with competitors.

"Absolutely I did see that as well," Jeff said.

"A lot of these manufacturers in the first and second run of their product would deliberately spike their supplements with prohibited and sometimes illegal substances.

"For the first few months of that supplement being on the market the consumer and end user would really notice a difference from using that supplement, whether it be muscle building if it was a steroid, or energy if there was a stimulant."

In the US, the FDA has identified more than 800 dietary supplements with hidden ingredients in the last 10 years, and there's probably thousands more; it's estimated less than one per cent of all dietary supplements have been tested.

"In my seven or eight years with the FDA I saw dozens and dozens and dozens of potential cases go unworked," Jeff said.

"It's a Wild West industry."

What about the drug Shayna Jack tested positive for?

In recent years, a new type of bodybuilding chemical has appeared on the black market, where it's hyped as the "holy grail" of supplements.

SARMs, which include Ligrandrol, are sometimes called 'synthetic steroids' and they have been promoted as a kind of 'health alternative' - you get the muscle gain without the risk of organ damage and shrunken testes.

Mostly developed in the 1990s to help cancer patients recover after muscle treatment; in 2010, just one athlete worldwide tested positive for SARMs; in 2016, there were 39.

Six of these were Australians - a triathlete, a wrestler, a weightlifter, a bodybuilder, and two motorcyclists. Since then, an Australian basketballer has tested positive, and a powerlifter.

In all these cases except one, the SARM was Ostarine - a drug developed to combat muscle wasting diseases, and subsequently abandoned.

In November last year, ASADA warned there appeared to be an increasing number of athletes linked to another, less popular type of SARM - Ligandrol.

However, exactly which athletes it was referring to is unclear; Shayna Jack is the only Australian athlete to have been publicly sanctioned.

Like every other SARM, Ligandrol has not been approved for human consumption; neither by the FDA in the US, or the TGA in Australia. Clinical trials suggest it may help users increase muscle mass without putting on fat, but it's medium and long-term health impacts are unknown.

Despite this, Australian bodybuilders have been carrying out their own extensive non-clinical trials; last year, Hack and Background Briefing revealed thousands of dollars of SARMs were being openly and illegally sold online and in Australian supplement stores.

Since that story, the Commonwealth has cracked down on online suppliers of SARMs and other illegal bodybuilding drugs, but, although several websites have vanished as a result, others have already sprung up to take their place.

A quick google search yields plenty of willing suppliers of Ligandrol, as well as other SARMs, including some that have been linked to cancer.

How do I know my supplement has not been contaminated?

In a 2016 study, Australian researchers selected 130 supplements from shops in Australia as well as online retailers, and found steroids in 24 of those products.

The actual proportion of contaminated supplements on sale is probably far lower (the researchers tested products they thought may be dodgy), but these results show there's a significant risk.

ASADA recommends Australian athletes use an online database to check whether an ingredient listed on a supplement label is permitted or prohibited in their sport.

It also has a mobile app that gives a complete list of all supplements sold in Australia that have been screened for prohibited substances by an independent laboratory. Tested supplements also have a clear stamp of certification. Given the scrutiny of Australian swimmers ahead of the world champs, it's hard to imagine athletes or coaches would avoid these simple precautions.

And yet, if Shayna Jack is the innocent victim of supplement contamination, there's a good chance the supplement hadn't been independently tested.

In a statement, Jack said she always checked her substances and had never heard of Ligandrol until her drug test came back positive.

Her two positive samples are from a routine out-of-competition test in late June - a month or so before the meet. Ligandrol can be detected for up to 21 days in urine, meaning the substance would have been ingested within two months of the championships.

"I understood the rules of ASADA, and I have followed all their processes," she said.

"In Australia, in a sport like swimming, I feel there is no possible way for an athlete to intentionally take a banned substance and not get caught.

"I get tested approximately every four to six weeks, so why would I take anything banned and do this to myself?"