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SINGAPORE - The use of dietary supplements is growing in popularity across the military community. Dietary supplement products boast a wide range of intended effects including muscle building, weight loss, performance and recovery agents, joint conditioning, and improving overall health. Many of these products can have unintended consequences when used improperly.
"The lure of getting stronger, faster, leaner, and smarter often leads to a ‘more is better’ mindset,” said Captain Loren Masuoka, senior medical officer Navy Region Singapore. “Using these supplements in larger or more frequent dosages can have negative effects on performance, interfere with normal bodily levels such as in blood pressure and kidney function, and in extreme cases, cause irreversible damage or death.”
Combining multiple dietary supplement products, known as stacking, is often done to enhance or compliment the effects of a particular supplement with the effects of a different product. This is especially popular amongst customers seeking to elevate their overall physical potential, such as members of the military preparing for their periodic physical readiness test. Stacking supplements carries the greatest risks associate with dietary supplements, as the combination of multiple products can be detrimental to a person’s health.
“Stacking can multiply the negative side effects or potentially toxic interactions of supplement ingredients or multiply effects beyond which the body is capable of dealing,” Masuoka explained. “This effect is even more dangerous if the athlete has any underlying medical issues, taking prescription medications, undergoing a medical procedure, or receives accidental trauma.”
Energy drinks are designed to deliver a quick burst of energy by combining sugars, caffeine, amino acids, B vitamins and herbal products. This combination of ingredients leads to an elevation in heart rate and blood pressure while also increasing anxiety and nervousness. Energy drinks are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and the long term effects of their combined ingredients are unknown.
Consumers often assume if a product is available in a store or pharmacy that there are guarantees of safety, effectiveness and product quality. However, manufacturers of dietary supplements can market their products without valid research. The Food and Drug Administration must prove that a supplement is unsafe before the product can be removed from the market.
“Currently, the FDA can only promote standards for safe production and quality control,” said Masuoka. “It can take a lot of time to research enough evidence of detrimental effects, many which may not be reported because there was no hospitalization involved or the patient failed to report use. By the time a supplement is implicated in poor health, many may have already experienced irreversible damage.”
Consulting a doctor before using any supplement is the best way to ensure the product is safe for use and should be done prior to using any dietary product. Another method to ensure safety is to see if the supplement is third-party verified. Third-party certification organizations have developed standards for assessing and validating the quality of a supplement, including the ingredients, dosage levels, level of contaminants, label claims, and whether the manufacturing facilities follow good manufacturing practices.
“People using supplements need to be extremely well informed consumers,” advised Masuoka. “Supplements should produce the highest documented benefits with the lowest overall risk to health. Feel free to consult with the Medical Aid Station to see if the desired supplement is compatible with your health history.”
For more information on dietary supplement safety, head over to the Human Performance Resource Center at http://hprc-online.org/dietary-supplements.
| Date Taken: | 01.21.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.22.2016 03:30 |
| Story ID: | 189558 |
| Location: | SG |
| Web Views: | 258 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, The Dangers of Dietary Supplement Misuse, by PO3 Joshua Fulton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
