Bigger, stronger, higher, faster. High school sports have never been so competitive. Many kids say that if they want to make the team and get playing time they HAVE to use some kind of sports supplement. But the choices are endless, and the advertisements don’t indicate possible side effects or dangers. Dr. Christine Haller is a medical toxicologist with a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study sports supplements. “Some of them have contaminants in them, sometimes there’s heavy metals; pharmaceutical products have been detected,” she says. “People probably don’t understand that [supplements] haven’t been standardized for testing or purity, or even for the absence of bacteria.” Whether they’re taking steroids, creatine, diet pills or protein shakes, it seems many high school athletes are risking their health to get strong and lean … what they call ‘ripped.’ But the side effects are ripping many families apart.