CRN hits back at study linking US military supplement use with adverse effects

08 Feb 2022 --- Widely consumed supplements in the US military have been linked with adverse outcomes, with those related to weight loss, workouts and prohormones having the highest risk. This is according to a new study, which the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) says is limited.

“A study designed to investigate adverse effects and promoted as such would likely have a bias as it would be expected that participants – service members – that typically use or are included to use dietary supplements and have experienced adverse or side effects would agree to participate,” details Dr. Rick Kingston, co-founder of SafetyCall International.

However, the study’s authors argue the “procedures adopted” in the study “may serve as a model for a continuous national surveillance system” for detecting harmful supplements.

A surveillance system like this could alert regulatory agencies and the general public when potentially harmful dietary supplements enter the market.

Tracking supplement effects
The adverse supplement effect analysis comes when dietary supplements are being used by 50% of US citizens and 70% of US military service members.

The study was conducted on 26,000 military service member participants who reported on the adverse effects of dietary supplements via a questionnaire.

Service members indicated if they used a particular dietary supplement (from a list of 163 products) in the last six months and believed they experienced specific adverse effects from consuming the supplements.

Analyzing the results
Of the participants, 18% of pre/post-workout users, 15% of fat/weight loss users, 10% of bodybuilding and 8% of prohormone supplement users reported one or more adverse effects.

To add to this, the highest prevalence of unfavorable effects in specific dietary supplements categories was prohormones (35%), weight loss supplements (33%), pre or post-workout supplements (26%), herbal products (14%) and multivitamin or multi-minerals (12%).CRN has pointed to study limitations, including participants recollecting supplement use and side effects from six months ago.

Additionally, the following dietary supplement forms were found to have high adverse effects: protein or amino acid dietary supplements (11%), muscle building supplements (9%), other dietary supplements (7%), joint health products (6%) and individual vitamins or minerals (5%).

The specific dietary supplements of concern (with the proportion reporting adverse effects) included: Libido Max with adverse effects reported in 35% of users, Hydroxycut Hardcore and OxyElite both with 33%, Roxylean (31%) and Growth Factor 9 (30%).

Dietary supplements may contain compounds that have independent or additive adverse effects and combine with other components or prescription drugs.

Limitations in the accuracy of results
However, the CRN is pointing to a number of limitations, including that the study announcement was not included, so it was not clear how the study was positioned with the military service members.

Study limitations include the fact “that there was no information regarding how many stopped using the product due to the adverse effects, what the severity of the effects was as not all adverse effects are created equal,” says Kingston.

Due to the adverse effects being self-reported, CRN states there could have been a misunderstanding as being linked to the consumption of a particular product when they were caused by something else.

Furthermore, because service members were asked to recollect supplement use and side effects from the prior six months, there is a high risk of memory mistakes. Also, dosage information for dietary supplements was not collected. It is unclear whether items were taken as directed on the label.

Previously, the American College of Clinical Pharmacology called for tighter FDA oversight after the US was found to be “flooded” with low-quality supplements.

By Nicole Kerr