Does Informed Sport test for heavy metals?

Three doors for a metal: how lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic get into a supplement, the raw material, the process and the untested batch, and who watches each door with which document

Does Informed Sport test for heavy metals is a question whose answer is no, and the way to make the no useful is to follow a metal into a tub and ask who was watching. Lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic are not added to supplements; they arrive, and they arrive through one of three doors, each of which is watched by a different person with a different document, none of which is the sport programme's. A buyer who knows the three doors knows where to look for the metals answer, and knows why a logo that watches a fourth door cannot give it.

The first door is the raw material, and it is the widest. Metals are in soil, water and sediment, and a plant concentrates what its soil holds, a mushroom concentrates it further, a marine ingredient carries what its water held, and a mined mineral carries what its ore held; so a pea or rice protein, a turmeric or ashwagandha extract, a mushroom powder, a fish or algal oil, a clay, and some magnesium, calcium and zinc salts arrive at the factory already carrying whatever their source carried. The watcher at this door is the supplier's certificate of analysis for the raw-material lot, stating the four metals as measured, and the brand's or the manufacturer's goods-in testing, which under good manufacturing practice means the raw material is quarantined on arrival, identified and tested against a specification that includes the metals limits before it is released to production. A brand that buys from a supplier with a certificate per lot and tests on receipt has watched the first door; a brand that buys the cheapest raw material with no certificate has left it open.

The second door is the process. A metal can be picked up from worn equipment, from a lubricant, from a water supply, or carried over from a previous product on a shared line, and the watcher is the manufacturing site's good manufacturing practice: the equipment specification, the water quality, the cleaning validation that shows the previous product is removed to a measured limit, and the site's own environmental monitoring, all audited under the site's GMP or BRC certification. A product made at a certified site has had the second door watched by the site, which is what the site's certificate attests and one of the few things it does. The third door is the finished batch going out without a metals analysis. Even with the first two doors watched, the only measurement of what is actually in the tub is a metals analysis of the finished lot, by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry at an accredited laboratory, reported against the contaminant regulations' limits; the watcher is the brand, as the food business responsible under general food law for the product being below those limits, and the document is the certificate of analysis for the lot. A brand that tests each lot has watched the third door, a brand that tests occasionally has watched it occasionally, and a brand that relies on the first two doors has assumed rather than measured.

Three doors and three watchers set out, with the fourth door the sport programme watches, why its screen cannot see a metal, the categories where the metal doors are widest, what a tested athlete there asks for, the worked example and the verdict in the next section.

The fourth door, the one the sport programme watches, and why its per-batch screen cannot see a metal; the categories where the metal doors are widest; what a tested athlete in those categories asks for; the worked example; and the verdict

The sport programme watches a fourth door entirely. Banned substances enter a supplement by routes that look like the first two doors, a raw material adulterated or mislabelled at source, or a shared line that also handles a prohibited substance for another customer, and the programme's answer is a site audit for contamination control and a screen of every batch before release for the substances on the anti-doping prohibited list, several hundred organic molecules identified by chromatography and mass spectrometry. That screen is a watcher at the banned-substance door and at no other: it is requested for the prohibited list, prepared by an extraction that keeps organic molecules intact, run on an instrument that separates and identifies molecules, and reported as detected or not detected per substance. A metal is an element, invisible to that instrument and destroyed by the preparation the metals test needs, and the programme has never claimed to measure one; a certified lot has been screened for the prohibited list and that is the whole of what the per-batch certificate says. The programme's site audit does touch the second door, since a site with contamination control for banned substances usually has it for everything, but touching a door is not measuring what came through it.

The categories where the metal doors are widest are the ones where the first door is a plant, a fungus, the sea or a mine: plant-based proteins, where pea and rice concentrate what their soil held and the surveys have found the highest metals of any supplement category; botanical and mushroom extracts, where concentration multiplies the source's load; marine oils and algae; mineral clays sold for detox, which are earth; and some mineral supplements, where the ore's companions travel with the mineral. In those categories the metals certificate for the lot is the first document a buyer reads, and the sport logo, however real, is irrelevant to the risk that matters most. A tested athlete in those categories needs both documents and asks for each by name: the programme's per-batch certificate for the lot, matched in the database, and the brand's metals certificate for the same lot, read for the four elements, the method, the limits of quantification and the laboratory's accreditation line. A brand that offers one document in answer to a request for the other has misread the question.

The worked example watches the metal doors and not the fourth, and is placed as that: {FL}, 1500mg magnesium bisglycinate stated as 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, two capsules with the evening meal, is a mineral supplement, a category where the first door is open, so its raw material is bought to a specification, it is manufactured in the UK at a site holding GMP and BRC certification, which watches the second door, and each finished lot is tested for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium by ICP-MS at an accredited UK laboratory against the contaminant limits, which watches the third, with the certificate for the lot on the label available on request. It is not enrolled in any sport programme and says so, so a tested athlete who wants a magnesium chooses one with a per-batch certificate in a programme's database and asks that brand for its metals certificate too; 180 capsules for £19.99 at 22p a day. The full label breakdown is here.

The verdict: the sport programme does not test for heavy metals, because a metal enters a tub by three doors, the raw material, the process and the untested finished batch, each watched by a different document, the supplier's certificate and goods-in testing, the site's good manufacturing practice, and the brand's own per-lot ICP-MS analysis, while the programme's per-batch screen watches a fourth door, the one banned substances come through, with an instrument that cannot see a metal. In the categories where the metal doors are widest, plant proteins, botanical and mushroom extracts, marine ingredients, clays and some minerals, the metals certificate is the first document, and a tested athlete asks for both by name.

What to check on the label

Questions people also ask

Does Informed Sport certification cover heavy metals?

No; a metal enters a supplement by one of three doors, the raw material that carried it from soil, water or ore, the process that picked it up from equipment or carry-over, or a finished batch that went out without a metals analysis, and each door is watched by a different document, the supplier's certificate and goods-in testing, the site's good manufacturing practice, and the brand's own per-lot analysis by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry; the sport programme's per-batch screen watches a fourth door, the one banned substances come through, with an instrument that identifies organic molecules and cannot see an element, so a certified lot has been screened for the prohibited list and not measured for metals.

Which supplements are most likely to contain heavy metals?

The ones whose raw material is a plant, a fungus, the sea or a mine, because that is the widest door: plant-based proteins, where pea and rice concentrate what their soil held and the surveys have found the highest metals of any category; botanical and mushroom extracts, where concentration multiplies the source's load; marine oils and algae; mineral clays sold for detox, which are earth; and some mineral supplements, where the ore's companions travel with the mineral; in those categories the brand's metals certificate for the lot is the first document a buyer reads and a sport logo is irrelevant to the risk that matters most.

How do brands test for heavy metals in supplements?

At three doors with three documents: on the raw material, by requiring the supplier's certificate of analysis for each lot and testing on receipt against a specification that includes the metals limits, under good manufacturing practice that quarantines material until it passes; in the process, by the site's equipment and water specifications, cleaning validation and environmental monitoring, audited under the site's GMP or BRC certification; and on the finished lot, by sending it to an accredited laboratory for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry after acid digestion, reported for lead, cadmium, mercury and inorganic arsenic against the contaminant regulations' limits with limits of quantification and the laboratory's accreditation line, which is the certificate a buyer asks for by lot.

Should a tested athlete worry about heavy metals or banned substances?

Both, by category, and the two are watched by different documents: banned substances are the strict-liability risk, enter by an adulterated raw material or a shared line, and are watched by the sport programme's site audit and per-batch screen, matched by lot in the database; metals are the safety risk for every buyer, enter by the raw material, the process or an untested batch, and are watched by the supplier's certificate, the site's GMP and the brand's per-lot ICP-MS analysis; an athlete using a plant protein, a botanical or mushroom extract, a marine ingredient or a mineral asks the brand for both certificates for the same lot by name, and a brand that offers one in answer to the other has misread the question.

Is this site's magnesium tested for heavy metals, and is it Informed Sport certified?

Tested, and not certified, which it says plainly: as a mineral supplement its raw-material door is open, so the magnesium bisglycinate is bought to a specification, the product is manufactured in the UK at a site holding GMP and BRC certification, and each finished lot is tested for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry at an accredited UK laboratory against the contaminant limits, with the certificate for the lot on the label available on request; it is not enrolled in any sport programme, so a tested athlete who wants a magnesium chooses one with a per-batch certificate in a programme's database and asks that brand for its metals certificate too; 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, 180 for £19.99 at 22p a day.

Sources

1. The sports supplement certification programmes: Informed Sport, Informed Choice, BSCG and NSF Certified for Sport test products or batches for banned substances, the assurance competing athletes rely on. https://sport.wetestyoutrust.com/
2. The heavy metals analysis literature: inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry is the standard method for quantifying lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic in dietary supplements against regulatory maximum levels. PubMed record
3. The supplement manufacturing standards: Good Manufacturing Practice, the BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety and ISO 22000 are the facility-level certifications a contract manufacturer holds and a brand may cite. https://www.brcgs.com/our-standards/food-safety/
4. The regulation on maximum levels of contaminants in food, retained in Great Britain, which sets maximum levels for lead, cadmium, mercury and inorganic arsenic in food supplements as sold, the legal ceiling that a brand's own release specification either copies or sits below, and the figure against which a certificate of analysis for metals is read. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2023/915

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