The Chinese government is geeting more involved in athletics and the use of supplements and the role played by dieticians:

China’s rising profile on the world’s sports stage and its determination to lay past drug scandals to rest means that the authorities are now taking a growing interest in – and control of – the sports supplement market. The State Administration of Physical Culture and Sports has now decreed that all traditional Chinese medicines must be tested for stimulants before athletes on local and national teams can use them. Furthermore, the State General Administration of Sports recently launched a key scientific project whose aim is to develop a system of dietary nutrients designed to enhance recovery and support the training loads of elite athletes. This system was employed to prepare Chinese athletes for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games – with apparent success.

With the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games looming, great emphasis is also being placed on the training of dieticians. And there is a simultaneous drive by the State Drug and Food Administration to tighten up on supplement manufacturing practices in order to reduce the risk of contamination. Only recently, one major Chinese supplement manufacturer was investigated by the Agricultural Products Quality Supervision Centre at the Ministry of Agriculture for the quality of its calcium supplements, which apparently contained significant amounts of toxic hydrogen peroxide. This case gained notoriety, because in China calcium tablets are a popular gift!