When major and minor league baseball players received a warning from the MLB last week, they probably didn't expect it to include the words "deer" and "antler."
But players have officially been warned by the league to stop ingesting deer antler spray, SI.com's Tom Verducci reports.The spray contains the substance IGF-1, which controls the amount of human growth hormone in a person's body.
IGF-1 is included on the list of substances banned by the MLB and the World Anti-Doping Agency, but because it cannot be detected in urine tests, the MLB has no current means for catching players.
However, according to reports from the drug-testing industry, it can mistakenly produce a positive result for methyltestosterone, which is also a banned substance. Therefore, the league issued the warning against the use of deer antler spray and added it to its list of "potentially contaminated nutritional supplements."
