Cargando…

The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future

BACKGROUND: Owing to the mechanics of anti-doping regulation via the World Anti-Doping Agency's Prohibited List, nutritional supplement use received little attention in comparison to the prevalence of doping. The aims of this study were to investigate supplement use, identify groups of athletes...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Petroczi, Andrea, Naughton, Declan P
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2263015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18186936
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-5-2
_version_ 1782151428134928384
author Petroczi, Andrea
Naughton, Declan P
author_facet Petroczi, Andrea
Naughton, Declan P
author_sort Petroczi, Andrea
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Owing to the mechanics of anti-doping regulation via the World Anti-Doping Agency's Prohibited List, nutritional supplement use received little attention in comparison to the prevalence of doping. The aims of this study were to investigate supplement use, identify groups of athletes with high levels of supplement use and the prevalence of concomitant use of supplements. METHODS: Survey data from 847 high-performing athletes in the UK were analysed using descriptive statistics. The survey, conducted by UK Sport, consisted of questions regarding knowledge of the prohibited substances, testing procedure, nutritional supplement use and perceptions of the doping problem. The proportion of supplement users and the relative use of each supplement were compared by age, gender and professional status. RESULTS: Among 874 high-performing athletes in the UK sample, 58.8% of them reported the use of at least one nutritional supplement. Among supplement users, 82.6% used more than one and 11.5% reported use of more than five nutritional supplements. Of the 9 supplements listed, multivitamins (72.6%) and vitamin C (70.7%) were used most, followed by creatine (36.1%), whey protein (31.7%), echinacea (30.9%), iron (29.9%) and caffeine (23.7%). Less than 11% reported the use of magnesium or ginseng. Creatine use was typically associated with males regardless of status and across all ages, whereas iron was characteristically used by females. A 'typical' supplement user is male, between 24 and 29 years of age, involved in professional sport and using a combination of supplements. Male professional players between age 30 and 34 years, and female non-professional athletes between 24 and 29 years of age also represented a considerable proportion of supplement users. Athletes older than 40 years of age were practically non-users. Concomitant use of supplements is characteristic of male users more than females. CONCLUSION: As supplement use has been previously shown to increase the probability of prohibited substance use, groups exhibiting high use of nutritional supplements should be monitored. Future research should incorporate a wide range of supplements and enquire about the daily amount ingested. In addition to tutoring, preventive measures should incorporate offering acceptable and healthy alternatives for assisted performance enhancement.
format Text
id pubmed-2263015
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2008
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-22630152008-03-06 The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future Petroczi, Andrea Naughton, Declan P J Int Soc Sports Nutr Research Article BACKGROUND: Owing to the mechanics of anti-doping regulation via the World Anti-Doping Agency's Prohibited List, nutritional supplement use received little attention in comparison to the prevalence of doping. The aims of this study were to investigate supplement use, identify groups of athletes with high levels of supplement use and the prevalence of concomitant use of supplements. METHODS: Survey data from 847 high-performing athletes in the UK were analysed using descriptive statistics. The survey, conducted by UK Sport, consisted of questions regarding knowledge of the prohibited substances, testing procedure, nutritional supplement use and perceptions of the doping problem. The proportion of supplement users and the relative use of each supplement were compared by age, gender and professional status. RESULTS: Among 874 high-performing athletes in the UK sample, 58.8% of them reported the use of at least one nutritional supplement. Among supplement users, 82.6% used more than one and 11.5% reported use of more than five nutritional supplements. Of the 9 supplements listed, multivitamins (72.6%) and vitamin C (70.7%) were used most, followed by creatine (36.1%), whey protein (31.7%), echinacea (30.9%), iron (29.9%) and caffeine (23.7%). Less than 11% reported the use of magnesium or ginseng. Creatine use was typically associated with males regardless of status and across all ages, whereas iron was characteristically used by females. A 'typical' supplement user is male, between 24 and 29 years of age, involved in professional sport and using a combination of supplements. Male professional players between age 30 and 34 years, and female non-professional athletes between 24 and 29 years of age also represented a considerable proportion of supplement users. Athletes older than 40 years of age were practically non-users. Concomitant use of supplements is characteristic of male users more than females. CONCLUSION: As supplement use has been previously shown to increase the probability of prohibited substance use, groups exhibiting high use of nutritional supplements should be monitored. Future research should incorporate a wide range of supplements and enquire about the daily amount ingested. In addition to tutoring, preventive measures should incorporate offering acceptable and healthy alternatives for assisted performance enhancement. BioMed Central 2008-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC2263015/ /pubmed/18186936 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-5-2 Text en Copyright © 2008 Petroczi and Naughton; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Petroczi, Andrea
Naughton, Declan P
The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future
title The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future
title_full The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future
title_fullStr The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future
title_full_unstemmed The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future
title_short The age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the UK taking nutritional supplements: Lessons for the future
title_sort age-gender-status profile of high performing athletes in the uk taking nutritional supplements: lessons for the future
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2263015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18186936
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-5-2
work_keys_str_mv AT petrocziandrea theagegenderstatusprofileofhighperformingathletesintheuktakingnutritionalsupplementslessonsforthefuture
AT naughtondeclanp theagegenderstatusprofileofhighperformingathletesintheuktakingnutritionalsupplementslessonsforthefuture
AT petrocziandrea agegenderstatusprofileofhighperformingathletesintheuktakingnutritionalsupplementslessonsforthefuture
AT naughtondeclanp agegenderstatusprofileofhighperformingathletesintheuktakingnutritionalsupplementslessonsforthefuture