Users' views of dietary supplements
One article on PainSci cites Blendon 2013: Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements for Pain & Healing
PainSci commentary on Blendon 2013: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
Blendon et al. did a survey of 1579 adults looking for users of dietary supplements (but not vitamins or mineral): 38% of those took some supplement in the past two years, and 13% took a supplement regularly, with fish oil topping the chart. Their reasons for taking supplements included: “to feel better” (41%), “improve energy levels” (41%), “boost your immune system” (36%), “digestive issues” (28%), and “lower cholesterol” (21%). Incredibly, only a quarter of them thought they would pass on supplement if a trial concluded it was ineffective.
related content
Specifically regarding Blendon 2013:
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Photobiomodulation therapy is not better than placebo in patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Guimarães 2021 Pain.
- No effect of creatine monohydrate supplementation on inflammatory and cartilage degradation biomarkers in individuals with knee osteoarthritis. Cornish 2018 Nutr Res.
- The CANBACK trial: a randomised, controlled clinical trial of oral cannabidiol for people presenting to the emergency department with acute low back pain. Bebee 2021 Med J Aust.
- Relationships Between Sleep Quality and Pain-Related Factors for People with Chronic Low Back Pain: Tests of Reciprocal and Time of Day Effects. Gerhart 2017 Ann Behav Med.
- Modulation in the elastic properties of gastrocnemius muscle heads in individuals with plantar fasciitis and its relationship with pain. Zhou 2020 Sci Rep.