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25.06.2022

Protein supplement and multivitamin users feel fitter and healthier

People who take protein supplements or multivitamins feel healthier and fitter than people who don't. Supplement users also feel more alert, happier, clearer and more relaxed. Researchers at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine discovered this when they interviewed more than 5,000 soldiers and employees of the US Coast Guard.

Study
Sixty percent of US soldiers use supplements. The researchers wondered whether this would make the soldiers behave healthier or unhealthier. So they asked the study participants about their mood and the extent to which they considered themselves fit or healthy.

Results
Taking supplements on their own had no effect, but when the researchers started to differentiate between the different types of supplements, they did notice some significant associations.

Multivitamin and protein users felt better across the board. They felt more awake, more relaxed, more cheerful and clearer. Steroid supplement users felt more hostile.

It was also striking that the supplement users felt healthier and fitter.

In the figure below you can see the chance that a supplement user feels healthy and fit, compared to a non-user. The asterisks indicate statistically significant differences.

Conclusion
The researchers do not think that the supplement users were actually healthier and fitter. They suspect that they have encountered a psychological mechanism through which the use of supplements actually encourages unhealthy behaviour.

We have written about this possible mechanism before.

"In general, positive mood states are associated with dietary supplements use and a greater level of health self-efficacy in military and Coast Guard personnel", the researchers write.

"Based on the present study and recent evidence from others, our findings suggest the use of certain dietary supplements classes may result in a perceived invulnerability to poor mental and physical health and therefore adversely affect health."

Source:
J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2014 Oct;34(5):595-601.

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