Are food supplements useful? When and how to use them
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Is it necessary to use food supplements in sports? Let's dive into this increasingly popular topic |
Is it right to use food supplements in sports? Answering this question from a scientific point of view is not easy if one doesn't know all the details about:
- the individual concerned;
- their job;
- how many hours are dedicated to sports (quantity and intensity in soccer are strictly linked to agonistic level);
- their dietary habits;
- other variables linked to their lifestyle.
When talking about food and nutritional supplements it is better to have all the information listed above.
This does not mean that all scientific studies and researches on this topic (on PubMed the keyword “sports supplementation” shows about 6900 results such as reviews, clinical trials etc.) tell that supplements are useless! However the most important thing is the personalization of the treatment, using a method, avoiding a reckless, careless use of supplements (see for example the use and abuse of supplements in the gym-fitness industry).
Ministry of Health describes supplements as:
“Food products that supplement a common food diet and that are a concentrated source of nutritional elements, such as vitamins and minerals or other substances that have nutritional or physiological effects, in particular, amino acids, essential fat acids, fibers and herbal extracts, in unit dose form”.
Supplementation addresses the need of caring for a deficiency of any kind, not necessarily clinical, and tries to compensate an insufficient dietary intake or increased need.
Supplementation is used to improve performance, promote recovery or support general health. Sports supplements industry generates a yearly turnover of several million dollars with hundreds of products that promise to improve muscles, power, strenght, speed, endurance, recovery and avoid injuries [1].
Italian supplements market in 2015 reached 2,559 billion euros with a total of 185 million packages sold! (source: FederSalus).
In Italy food supplements market is leader in Europe for dimensions, growth and structure. These products are worth today over 2,5 billion euros, of which 92% are sold at the drugstore, becoming the second market share after ethical drug, with a 9% growth that exceeds even self-medication drugs (source: adnkronos).
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Sure enough, most people will know one of the most used food supplements on the market: protein powder (egg white, whey, caseine, soy, hemp...).
These supplements can help with protein deficiencies when daily intake is not enough - daily requirement (of a soccer player) should be around 1.4-1.6 grams per weight kilogram [2-3-4], this can be easily met through a regular diet (proteins are found not only in meat, eggs, fish, dairy but even in grains, nuts, legumes), so the suggestion is to review people's eating habits to see if their diet is balanced. Learning to read food labels and knowing calories and macronutrients of food is very useful.
However in some cases food supplementation with protein powder makes sense. Consider athletes that train daily and need to have a different kind of intake as of amateur sports enthusiasts in order to accelerate recovery inbetween sessions. Protein powder is highly digestible and can be absorbed quicker than the same amount of protein that is in the whole food. So these supplements can be useful when there's the need to quickly integrate amino acids during post workout phases.
QUALITY IS IMPORTANT
Even when food supplements are recommended, it is crucial to pay attention to a few aspects.
In 2013 a major lab that tests food supplements examined 114 products of 24 notorious brands on the european market, including “energy” products, proteins, gels, etc. and found out a total of 20 banned substances (such as steroids, doping agents and stimulants) in 10% of all these products.
Most contaminated products were caps (55%) and pills (37%). Among these items there were even a few with a “doping free” label.
In the U.S. a study published in 2010 [5] found out that powder proteins sold on the american market often contain heavy metals, and this should be taken into account when choosing supplements.
The message we'd like to convey is that using food as main resource of proteins, carbs and fats is recommended, because food also provides vitamins, fibers, antioxidants, oligoelements and much more, substances that usually are not provided by food supplements. When there's the need to use food supplements, we recommend to choose a guaranteed brand, choosing high quality products.
References
- Corso S.N.S.: L’alimentazione nel calciatore – Natale Gentile 17-10-2015
- Boisseau, N.; Le Creff, C.; Loyens, M.; Poortmans, J.R. Protein intake and nitrogen balance in male non-active adolescent and soccer players
- Boisseau, N.; Vermorel, M.; Rance, M.; Duche, P.; Patureau-Mirand, P. Protein requirements in male adolescent soccer players.
- Lemon, P.W.R. Protein requirements of soccer. J. Sports Sci. 1994, 12, S17–S22
- Consum Rep. 2010 Jul;75(7):24-7. Alert: protein drinks. You don't need the extra protein or the heavy metals our tests found
