Assessing Canadian Regulation of Muscle-Building Supplements: Identifying Gaps and Recommendations for Improvement

Background and Purpose: Muscle-building supplements are a vast group of products purported to aid with muscle-building and performance enhancement. Legal muscle-building supplements, such as whey protein and creatine monohydrate, are commonly used among young people, including over 80% of boys and young men reporting use of whey protein and 50% reporting use of creatine monohydrate. Use of muscle-building supplements is correlated with many adverse psychosocial health effects (e.g., problematic substance use, criminal offending, disability, death) and these products have been found to be tainted with banned substances and subject to regulatory alerts. In Canada, muscle-building supplements are regulated federally by Health Canada under the Natural Health Products Regulations. This policy analysis aimed to investigate current Canadian policy related to muscle-building supplements to identify key gaps that expose Canadians, particularly young people, to potential risks.

Methods: A policy analysis was conducted to review the current policies in Canada, specifically the Natural Health Products Regulations. A review of policies in comparable jurisdictions (i.e., the United States, Australia) was also conducted to provide a comparison to Canada. Based on the current policies and prior research, recommendations were identified to strengthen Canada’s policies to protect the health and well-being of young people.

Results: Several gaps were identified in the Natural Health Products Regulations, including an over-reliance on industry to provide accurate product and manufacturing site testing, no age restrictions on product purchasing and use, no warning labels on products related to known risks, and lack of regulatory control from individual provincial health ministries. Given these gaps, specific policy recommendations provided to strengthen the current policy, reduce use, and minimize negative effects of use included, moving the products “behind-the-counter”, setting a purchasing age limit, taxing products, and random pre- and post-market testing.

Conclusions and Implications: Given the gaps identified in the Natural Health Products Regulations, there is an imperative need to strengthen Canadian regulations of muscle-building supplements to product the health and well-being of young people. The paper presentation will discuss the successful use of multiple methods of dissemination (e.g., white paper/infographic, webinar) of the policy analysis to increase knowledge among community members and key stakeholders to generate momentum toward policy reform.