Athlete Information Sources About Dietary Supplements: A Review of Extant Research

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan E. Denham

In the United States, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) classified dietary supplements as a subcategory of food, exempting manufacturers from providing premarket evidence of product safety and efficacy. Under DSHEA, agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot inspect supplements until after the products have entered the marketplace. Recognizing that both limited resources and DSHEA prevent the FDA from conducting broad-based inspections on a regular basis, disreputable manufacturers have spiked products with drugs such as anabolic steroids and amphetamines. With contaminated supplements now causing athletes to fail drug tests and, in some instances, threatening public health, it becomes important to examine sources of supplement information. This article reviews 53 studies that have addressed athlete information sources about dietary supplements. It finds that athletes, in general, rely heavily on coaches and trainers as well as friends and family for information. Relative to U.S. athletes, those competing internationally appear more likely to seek information from a physician or nutritionist. The article offers recommendations for individuals and organizations based on the most frequent information sources identified by athletes.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Bryan E Denham

Abstract More than 25 years have passed since the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 classified dietary supplements as a subcategory of food, thereby exempting manufacturers from providing premarket evidence of product safety and efficacy. In this commentary, I discuss problems in the supplement industry through an examination of cases introduced or decided in US federal courts between 2010 and 2019. More than half the cases located involved defendants charged with introducing misbranded food or drugs into interstate commerce. Contaminants included anabolic steroids, erectile dysfunction medications, weight-loss drugs, workout stimulants and mind-altering substances. As the article points out, raw powders obtained in bulk quantities facilitate the practice of ‘home brewing’ and the introduction of prescription drugs into dietary supplements.


Author(s):  
Janice Arceneaux ◽  
James Dickens ◽  
Wanza Bacon

Established in 1889, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (Corps) is one of the seven uniformed services and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Corps is committed to protecting, promoting and advancing the health and safety of the nation with a history that dates back over two centuries, beginning as the U.S. Marine Hospital Service. Today, the Corps responds and serves in many areas impacted by natural disasters, disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks and public health emergencies. Corps officers have deployed to provide assistance during national public health emergencies (e.g., hurricanes, bombings, flooding and wild fires); to combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa; and to provide humanitarian assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Corps deployments impact not only service members but also their families. This article offers a brief overview of the Corps and discusses how deployments impact families. Family resiliency and future implications for research and practice will also be examined.


Circulation ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 132 (suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
James L Crooks ◽  
Wayne Cascio ◽  
Madelyn Percy ◽  
Jeanette Reyes ◽  
Lucas Neas ◽  
...  

Introduction: Extreme weather events such as dust storms are predicted to become more frequent as the global climate warms through the 21st century. Studies of Asian, Saharan, Arabian, and Australian dust storms have found associations with cardiovascular and total non-accidental mortality and hospitalizations for stroke. However, the only population-level epidemiological work on dust storms in the United States was focused on a single small metropolitan area (Spokane, WA), and it is uncertain whether its null results are representative of the country as a whole. Hypothesis: Dust storms in the United States are associated with daily cardiovascular mortality. Methods: Dust storm incidence data (N=141), including date and approximate location, as well as meteorological station observations, were taken from the U.S. National Weather Service. County-level mortality data for the years 1993-2005 were acquired from the National Center for Health Statistics. Ambient particulate matter monitor concentrations were obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Inference was performed used conditional logistic regression models under a case-crossover design while accounting for the nonlinear effect of temperature. Results: We found a 9.5% increase in cardiovascular mortality at a two-day lag (95% CI: [0.31%,19.5%], p = 0.042). The results were robust to adjusting for heat waves and ambient particulate matter concentrations. Analysis of storms occurring only on days with <0.1 inches of precipitation strengthened these results and in addition yielded a mean daily increase of 4.0% across lags 0-5 (95% CI: [0.07%,20.8%], p = 0.046). In Arizona, the U.S. state with the largest number of storms, we observed a 13.0% increase at a three-day lag (CI: [0.40%,27.1%], p = 0.043). Conclusions: Dust storms in the U.S. are associated with increases in lagged cardiovascular mortality. This has implications for the development of public health advisories and suggests that further public health interventions may be needed. Disclaimer: This work does not represent official U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy.


2013 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVEN M. GENDEL ◽  
NAZLEEN KHAN ◽  
MONALI YAJNIK

Despite awareness of the importance of food allergy as a public health issue, recalls and adverse reactions linked to undeclared allergens in foods continue to occur with high frequency. To reduce the overall incidence of such problems and to ensure that food-allergic consumers have the information they need to prevent adverse reactions, it is important to understand which allergen control practices are currently used by the food industry. Therefore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration carried out directed inspections of registered food facilities in 2010 to obtain a broader understanding of industry allergen control practices in the United States. The results of these inspections show that allergen awareness and the use of allergen controls have increased greatly in the last decade, but that small facilities lag in implementing allergen controls.


Author(s):  
Richard J. Gelting ◽  
Steven C. Chapra ◽  
Paul E. Nevin ◽  
David E. Harvey ◽  
David M. Gute

Public health has always been, and remains, an interdisciplinary field, and engineering was closely aligned with public health for many years. Indeed, the branch of engineering that has been known at various times as sanitary engineering, public health engineering, or environmental engineering was integral to the emergence of public health as a distinct discipline. However, in the United States (U.S.) during the 20th century, the academic preparation and practice of this branch of engineering became largely separated from public health. Various factors contributed to this separation, including an evolution in leadership roles within public health; increasing specialization within public health; and the emerging environmental movement, which led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with its emphasis on the natural environment. In this paper, we consider these factors in turn. We also present a case study example of public health engineering in current practice in the U.S. that has had large-scale positive health impacts through improving water and sanitation services in Native American and Alaska Native communities. We also consider briefly how to educate engineers to work in public health in the modern world, and the benefits and challenges associated with that process. We close by discussing the global implications of public health engineering and the need to re-integrate engineering into public health practice and strengthen the connection between the two fields.


Healthcare ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Sou Hyun Jang ◽  
Linda K. Ko ◽  
Hendrika Meischke

Korean immigrants in the United States (U.S.) are known for their preference for, and dependence on, co-ethnic doctors due to various barriers to the U.S. healthcare system. Recent immigrants tend to face more barriers than their non-recent counterparts. However, there is little information on how they find their doctors in the U.S. This study includes a self-administrated survey of Korean immigrants aged 18 and above who lived in the New York–New Jersey Metropolitan area in 2013–2014 (n = 440). Descriptive analysis was conducted to understand the most common information sources and the number of sources based on the duration of stay in the U.S. More recent Korean immigrants were female, had no family doctor, uninsured, younger, and more educated than their non-recent counterparts. Regardless of the duration of stay in the U.S., family members and friends were the most frequently sought-after sources for Korean immigrants in their search for doctors. In addition to family members and friends, non-recent Korean immigrants also used other methods (e.g., Korean business directories), whereas recent immigrants used both U.S. and Korean websites. More recent Korean immigrants used multiple sources compared to non-recent Korean immigrants, often combined with a Korean website. Our study suggests policy implications to improve recent immigrants’ accessibility to health information in a timely manner.


PMLA ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-458
Author(s):  
Garland Cannon

The once bleak situation of non-native English speakers in the U.S., who suffered in a monolingual English curriculum and faced discrimination because of their language, has somewhat improved. Passage of the Bilingual Education Act in 1967 and its implementation through fifty-eight projects funded for eight million dollars by the U.S. Office of Education in 1970-71 have given bilingual opportunities to some of the five million American children who speak Spanish or some language other than English as their first language. However, major problems persist. There is need for international cooperation in bilingual activities. Funds are inadequate. Existing American programs cannot yet be reliably evaluated, and they are not reaching enough children. There is some formlessness in their general direction and national shaping. Higher education needs to (1) adjust teaching methodologies, evaluation procedures, and admissions policies until the present culture-biased tests can be replaced by linguistically valid, dispassionate instruments; (2) increase financial aid to non-native speakers of English; and (3) establish special bilingual teacher-training programs and materials-development centers. Development of comprehensive bilingual programs at the precollege and college levels is imperative, despite their enormous cost.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 609-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Abbate ◽  
A. T. Kicman ◽  
M. Evans-Brown ◽  
J. McVeigh ◽  
D. A. Cowan ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Wendy Kline

This article provides an understanding of the history of the nature/nurture debate that was initially of great interest to both intellectual and social historians. It presents in-depth studies of influential organization and individuals and discusses two approaches introduced by the history of science to the study of eugenics. It links eugenic concerns about race betterment with concerns about Mexican immigration, arguing that in the early twentieth century, the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) and the Border Patrol shaped the complicated process of racialization on the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. This article argues that disability is a category of analysis as important as race, class, or gender in understanding the past. Eugenics is no longer a forgotten relic of the past, but a vibrant field that addresses controversial issues from a variety of fields and standpoints.


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