Rogues' Gallery

Because it's hard to stand out on the densely packed shelves of nutrition stores, life for new supplements tends to be nasty, brutish and short. In an industry in which companies must constantly retool and remarket products, some of the most notable figures are former steroid makers or traffickers who have reinvented themselves.

• David Jenkins won an Olympic silver medal in 1972 as part of the British 400-meter relay team. Fifteen years later he pleaded guilty to his role in a major smuggling operation that brought approximately $70 million worth of steroids across the border from Mexico into the U.S. While awaiting sentencing he started selling protein powders from home. Jenkins was sentenced to seven years in prison but got out in six months and in 1993 founded Next Nutrition, based in Carlsbad, Calif. One of the company's most popular products was Ultimate Orange, the supplement containing ephedra that two teammates of Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler said he took about an hour before he collapsed on a practice field and died in August 2001. Today the company, renamed Next Proteins, makes Designer Whey, the official protein supplement of NBC's weight-loss reality show, The Biggest Loser. Jenkins is Next Protein's president and CEO.

• Victor Conte, the founder of the notorious Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), pleaded guilty in 2005 to money laundering and steroid distribution and served four months in prison. Out of an office building in San Carlos, Calif., Conte is now focused on running a supplement company called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning (SNAC), which once shared office space with BALCO. SNAC's best-selling products are versions of ZMA, a supplement containing zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6 that purports to increase levels of serotonin, which promotes sleep and maximizes muscle healing after workouts.

• Patrick Arnold created the designer steroids that BALCO dispensed and he helped popularize androstenedione, Mark McGwire's supplement of choice during his 1998 home run tear. In 2006 Arnold pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute steroids, for which he served three months in prison. Until recently he was the head chemist for ErgoPharm and the head of research for its parent firm, Proviant Technologies Inc., a company that he cofounded; Proviant (now shut down, according to Arnold) and ErgoPharm produced 6-OXO Extreme, the supplement that allegedly caused Phillies pitcher J.C. Romero to fail an MLB drug test in August 2008. (Arnold's offices in Champaign, Ill., were raided by the DEA in January, a week after Romero's suspension was announced.) Arnold maintains that ErgoPharm products are not spiked with steroids but that their supplements may cause a false positive test for a banned substance.

• Ron Kramer, then a bodybuilder, was convicted in 1997 in San Mateo (Calif.) County of selling large quantities of two anabolic steroids and sentenced to six months of house arrest and three years' probation. Today he is the president of the Phoenix-based supplement company ThermoLife International. There are conflicting accounts of Kramer's alleged role as a law enforcement informant following a probation violation in 2000, but his lawyer wrote in a court document that Kramer "worked his little fingers to the bone" providing information to sheriff's deputies who were working on steroids cases. Kramer has denied allegations that he was an informant in the BALCO investigation.