Maged Ossama Aly1*, Samar Abd-El Mohsen Ali1, Nawal Abdel Rehim El-Sayed1
Nutrition Department, High Institute of Public Health, Alexandria University, Egypt
*Corresponding Author Email Address: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Background: Use of dietary supplements is an emerging tradition by athletes not only in the developed countries, but also in the developing ones without knowing their effects on health and athletic performance. Objective: The aim was to investigate the use of dietary supplements among athletes in Alexandria, Egypt, their sources of information about dietary supplements and reasons for supplementation. Subjects: A cross sectional study was conducted on 200 athletes attending both governmental clubs and private gymnasiums in Alexandria, Egypt. Data was collected for personal characteristics, athletic, use of supplements data, and reasons for supplementation. Results: Total 42% of the athletes were using dietary supplements, out of this 75% were male athletes. The most common type of supplements used by athletes was protein supplements (67.9%) followed by vitamins and minerals (52.4%). Most of the supplements users (86.9%) were practicing sport for more than three years, training 4-5 times/week (61.9%), were training for more than 90 minutes/session (54.8%). Most athletes obtain information about dietary supplements from internet, coaches and fellow athletes. The majority (79.8%) of supplements users indicated that their use of supplements was increase endurance. Conclusions: The use of dietary supplements has become popular and widespread in our community with a thought of the higher training load, the greater supplementation demand with misunderstanding of the rationale for using dietary supplements.
Keywords: Sport, Nutrition, Supplements Alexandria, Egypt
Citation: Aly MO, Ali SA, El-Sayed NA. Assessment of Dietary Supplements Use among Athletes in Alexandria, Egypt. Canad J Clin Nutr 2018; 6 (2): 43-56.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14206/canad.j.clin.nutr.2018.02.04
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