The Cologne List® is considered the leading platform for the analysis of food supplements in Europe. The laboratory, the Center for Preventative Doping Research at the German Sport University Cologne works closely with the World Anti Doping Agency for the testing of food supplements. 

The Cologne List® publishes products that have been assessed and rigorously analyzed for selected doping substances by the globally leading ISO-Certified laboratory. Products listed here help to significantly reduce the risk of inadvertent doping, while also providing additional layers of quality control to the manufacturers.

Dietary supplements - unlike pharmaceuticals - do not go through an official approval process. This means, that no regulatory authority checks the accuracy of the label or the safety of the contents before they are sold to athletes.

Cologne List® is an international quality management program that uses independent product controls to minimize the risk of including banned or doping-relevant substances in dietary supplements.

Cologne List® provides orientation and greater safety for test pool athletes, as well as recreational and amateur athletes.

The thorough and rigorous assessment protocol required to be listed on Cologne List® includes a label check by the experts within the Center for Preventive Doping Research at the German Sport University Cologne (CePreDo) at least once per year. The product manufacturer must also undertake a series of assessments to determine their safety and quality control processes and licenses. 

The final stage of the analysis requires various samples of the product being sent to the ISO-certified laboratory at the Center for Preventive Doping Research at the German Sport University Cologne for thorough analysis for banned substances, including anabolic-androgenic steroids and stimulants. 

The batch number listed on the product can then be cross-referenced against this laboratory report, which can be found and downloaded on all of our product pages.

From an analytical point of view, no supplement is completely safe, as no laboratory can test for all substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA. The focus in the manufacturing assessment and laboratory analysis is on anabolic-androgenic steroids and stimulants, as according to previous studies these substances were responsible for most contaminated and counterfeited dietary supplements. However, the continuously developed screening program also detects other banned substances.

Therefore, the publication of a product on Cologne List® does not mean that a product is completely free of doping substances. It does mean, however, that the product has been independently controlled and thus the risk of doping is significantly minimized. This provides a layer of protection and confidence when compared to other, off-the-shelf products. 

In principle, products that have passed the manufacturing assessment, label check and undergo regular laboratory analyses by a recognized anti-doping program such as Cologne List® have a significantly reduced risk of containing prohibited substances. 

This is the same as all other renowned, leading anti-doping programs from the UK and USA.