FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

By the end of the 1990s, more and more athletes had been consuming dietary supplements, and so the number of positive doping cases resulting from their use increased as well.
According to international studies on the testing of dietary supplements, 15 to 20% of the products used by athletes contained anabolic steroids or stimulants as active ingredients, or as contaminants not listed among the ingredients.
Unfortunately, even today certain products contain substances that are banned for athletes. The use of anabolic steroids and stimulants can result in severe health damages and, in addition, in the case of athletes, in positive doping tests.
When evaluating doping cases, the anti-doping code does not take into consideration how a banned substance entered the body of the athlete.

Yes, but only with respect to the substances tested! The fact that the product is on the list of Eurofins Analytical Services Hungary does not guarantee that there are no other substances in the product that are on the prohibited list, which are not analyzed. Test results of the products listed on our website are only published at the request of the partner, with their written permission, in full compliance with the rules of confidentiality

The list of substances tested was compiled on the basis of the largest number of positive cases by WADA, i.e., these are the substances that cause the most problems in doping tests.
Several methods have been developed by Eurofins Analytical Services Hungary for the determination of prohibited substances in dietary supplements. Using the methods developed, currently the determination of 85 substances, important for athletes, that are on the Prohibited List of WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) can be carried out in different dietary supplement matrices.
WADA rules are mandatory for all signed athletes. The Prohibited List, enumerating the substances banned for athletes, is part of the rules. Currently, there are more than 270 banned substances on the Prohibited List, but the prohibition applies to many more substances because of the similar chemical structure and biological effect.

In the database, next to the name of the product, it is shown which version of the analytical protocol the actual determination was based on. The lists of components tested during the different periods and the accredited lower detection limits are listed in the tables in the Tests menu.

Eurofins Analytical Services Hungary has been present in the Hungarian market for 30 years. Our accredited areas of activity include environmental analyses, food and feed testing, pharmaceutical analyses, consulting and education, research and development. We have decades of experience and outstanding practical knowledge in the area of testing dietary supplements and foods for particular nutritional uses, with special emphasis prohibited substances.

Test are performed in accordance with the requirements of standard MSZ EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005, under accredited conditions.

During the accreditation process, when validating the methods developed, the lower limits of quantifications (LOQ) were determined, and these are typically between 10 and 50 ng/g in the case of substances important for athletes. The lower limit of quantification for a certain component is the quantitative limit value at which the component to be analyzed can be clearly distinguished from the other components of the matrix.
The lower limit of quantification for a certain component to be analyzed is not a uniform value irrespective of the composition of the given product (matrix). There are even cases when, because of the unique composition of the product, some of the compounds to be analyzed cannot be determined by the methods used.
In the course of our tests, the determinations are carried out using spiked samples (additioned with known amounts of standard solutions) for all of the products tested, thus checking the efficiency of our methods and the concentration values of the lower limits of quantification of the method used for all of the components tested by us.
Over the years, the number of components tested have been, and is still being increased continuously. Our methods have been accredited after each expansion.