Informed Sport: What the Certification Means If You Compete
Informed Sport is a certification programme that tests supplements, batch by batch, for substances banned in sport. It is run by LGC’s laboratories alongside UK Anti-Doping, and it is the standard athletes and professional teams use to decide what they take. Sports ProResolve carries it.
If you compete at a professional level, you know the margin between winning and missing out is measured in details. You manage your training load, your periodisation, your rest, your nutrition. Choosing a supplement should not be the weak link in all that work.
Sports ProResolve is formulated with Lipinova® SPM, an ingredient that supplies the mediators involved in the natural resolution of inflammation after exertion. But “natural” does not mean “unchecked”. Precisely because you compete in an environment where any undeclared trace can cost you a ban, we have put the product through the most demanding standard in sports nutrition: Informed Sport certification.
Natural does not mean risk-free
A product being naturally derived does not exempt it from risk. In fact, many cases of inadvertent doping in sport do not come from synthetic ingredients but from cross-contamination during manufacturing: traces of banned substances that end up in a product without the brand knowing, often because it is made in facilities that also handle other compounds.
The scale of the problem is documented. An international study analysed 634 supplements bought across thirteen countries and found undeclared doping substances in around 15% of them (Geyer et al., 2004). Later reviews put contamination rates between 12% and 58% depending on the product type (Martínez-Sanz et al., 2017).
And the responsibility sits with you. Under the anti-doping rules every athlete competes by, a positive test is the athlete’s responsibility regardless of whether the substance came from a contaminated supplement they had no way of knowing about. That is why we were not willing to settle for a formula that is clean on paper: we wanted every batch leaving the factory verified independently before it reaches you.
What Informed Sport certification is
Informed Sport is an international certification and testing programme for sports supplements, developed in partnership with UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) and run by LGC’s laboratories, which have more than two decades of experience in anti-doping analysis. It is the reference standard for professional athletes, elite teams and anti-doping bodies worldwide.
What it means that Sports ProResolve carries the mark
In practice, four things:
- Every batch is tested individually against a panel of more than 250 substances banned in sport, rather than the general formula being checked once a year.
- Testing is carried out by an accredited external laboratory under ISO 17025. It is not an internal self-assessment.
- Certification does not stop at approval. Informed Sport carries out periodic blind testing on product already on the market, to make sure nothing changes over time.
- You can check it yourself. Every tub of Sports ProResolve carries a batch number you can look up in the public Informed Sport database to confirm that specific unit has been tested and cleared.
That last point is the one worth using. Anyone can print a logo on a label. A batch number that appears in an independent database is a different matter, and it takes ten seconds to check.
Why we do it this way
We could simply say Sports ProResolve is a natural product and leave it there. But for a professional athlete, “natural” is not guarantee enough when your career is on the line. That is why we have taken the product a step beyond the industry norm: we do not just formulate with your recovery in mind, we verify batch by batch that what you take is consistent with what is on the label.
Train without limits. Recover without doubt. With Sports ProResolve, every batch meets the same standard you hold yourself to.
Frequently asked questions
An international certification programme for sports supplements run by LGC's laboratories in partnership with UK Anti-Doping (UKAD). It tests every batch of product against a panel of more than 250 substances banned in sport and publishes the results in an open database.
Both are LGC programmes, but the level of scrutiny is not the same. Informed Choice tests samples of a product periodically; Informed Sport tests every batch before it reaches the market. If you compete under anti-doping control, Informed Sport is the one that matters.
No programme can offer an absolute guarantee, and you should be wary of any that claims to. What certification does is reduce the risk to the lowest reasonable level: every batch tested, an accredited external laboratory, and follow-up verification on product already in shops. Under anti-doping rules, the athlete remains responsible for what they ingest.
Find the batch number printed on the packaging and look it up in the public Informed Sport database. If that batch appears, it has been tested and cleared. Do not rely on the logo on the label alone: the batch number is what counts.
All of them. This is not an annual sample or a one-off certification of the formula: every production batch is tested before it goes on sale, and periodic blind testing is also carried out on units bought on the open market.
They are two programmes with the same purpose but different operators and different geographic reach. Informed Sport is the more established standard in Europe; NSF Certified for Sport is the reference in the United States. Both screen products against banned substance lists.
You do not need it to avoid a ban, but it does tell you something useful: that an external laboratory has verified the contents of the tub match the label. That is a manufacturing quality guarantee whether you compete or not.
Yes. Every batch is tested before it goes on sale, and you can verify it yourself by entering your tub's batch number in the Informed Sport database.
Dr. Romero Urrea
Physician specializing in clinical research, pharmacology and biomedical sciences.
References
Geyer H et al. Int J Sports Med. 2004;25(2):124-9.
Martínez-Sanz JM et al. Nutrients. 2017;9(10):1093.