BACKGROUND Owing to the mechanics of anti-doping regulation via the World Anti-Doping Agency's Prohibited List, nutritional supplement use received little attention in comparison to the prevalence of doping. The aims of this study were to investigate supplement use, identify groups of athletes with high levels of supplement use and the prevalence of concomitant use of supplements. METHODS Sur...

Abstract. The player of squash has a choice between two options when his/her opponent changes the score from 8:7 to 8:8. The player to receive has to decide whether to play until 9th or until 10th point. We observe in this paper that the score of the squash game can be modelled as a Markov chain. Thus using standard techniques of Markov processes, we can derive the optimal strategy for the squa...

Winter sports are played in cold conditions on ice or snow and often at moderate to high altitude. The most important nutritional challenges for winter sport athletes exposed to environmental extremes include increased energy expenditure, accelerated muscle and liver glycogen utilization, exacerbated fluid loss, and increased iron turnover. Winter sports, however, vary greatly regarding their n...

Dietary supplements are widely used at all levels of sport. Changes in patterns of supplement use are taking place against a background of changes in the regulatory framework that governs the manufacture and distribution of supplements in the major markets. Market regulation is complicated by the increasing popularity of Internet sales. The need for quality control of products to ensure they co...

Few supplements have a scientifically proven ergogenic effects of improving exercise capacity and/or physical performance in sport. The athletes require specialised nutrition, including precisely good quality supplementation, i.e. tested. Nowadays, more and use nutritional supplementation to improve their sporting both at the elite non-elite levels. In this review, substances such as β-alanine,...

OBJECTIVE To determine factors associated with adult squash players' protective eyewear behaviours. METHODS A survey of 303 players (aged >or =18 years) was conducted at three squash venues in Melbourne, Australia over a three week period in June 2000 to obtain information about protective eyewear use. RESULTS Of 303 participants the response rate was 98.1%; 66.1% were males, with a mean ag...

Dietary intakes and supplement use in Paralympic athletes remains largely unexplored, and specialized recommendations are lacking. The aim of this study was to evaluate nutrient intakes and supplement use in high-performance athletes with physical disabilities using three-day food records and a validated dietary supplement use questionnaire. A secondary aim examined gender differences in nutrie...

The branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) including leucine (Leu), isoleucine (Ile) and valine (Val) play a pivotal role in the human body. Herein, we developed capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled with conventional UV detector to quantify underivatized BCAAs in two kinds of sport nutritional supplements. For direct UV detection at 195 nm, the BCAAs (Leu, two enantiomers of Ile and Val) were sep...