The purpose of this study was to review the literature about the contamination of dietary supplements by substances considered harmful to health or doping to athletes. Scientific articles indexed in the databases Medline and Scielo were searched. It was observed that some investigations had detected excessive doses of potentially toxic not labeled ingredients that are considered doping. Among the illegal substances found in some supplements there are the anabolic-androgenic steroids and stimulants. It can be concluded that the use of dietary supplements by practitioners of physical activities, competitive or not, needs more security and should be done carefully.
Dietary supplements; anabolic-androgenic steroids; contamination; doping