Dietary Supplements

ASICS Running Clinics Pro Team Dietician Ruth McKean shares her views on the use of dietary supplements in a runner’s life.

The use of supplements does not substitute for good food choices. For most runners a well chosen diet that contains a variety of foods and covers energy needs for training may provide most, if not all nutrients that they need. However, soundly formulated sport foods such as sports drinks, gels & bars before, during or after exercise can be useful for some people in some instances.

There are also a few supplements which may help runners in certain instances, but these should only ever be taken with the advice of a suitably qualified person who can determine if the individual would benefit, as some may be detrimental or go against good health if taken incorrectly. It is also important to recognise that with many supplements individuals will react differently as some are responders and some are non-responders. 

At this time there are only a few supplements with evidence of efficiency and safety, but that is not to say just because there is no evidence for other supplements that they will not be shown to be beneficial in time. It’s unfortunate that currently studies are lacking supporting evidence due to poorly controlled studies or different methodologies used between studies.

There are some supplements that have been popular amongst runners for many years, such as a daily multivitamin or mineral intake, and for some there is merit in consuming these. In addition a supplement such as glucosamine, which claims to benefit joint health, is especially appealing for a sport such as running. Again it’s important to recognise that nearly all the evidence supporting these benefits has also been extracted from a non-athletic population who had also confirmed knee osteoarthritis. However for some this may be beneficial, but unlikely to benefit the numbers that are actually taking this supplement.

A number of immunity supplements, such as Echinacea have an amount of evidence supporting its popularity. 

There are also supplements which are marketed directly as performance enhancing such as creatine, caffeine and buffering agents and there is evidence and safety studies that do back these as being useful to some runners. However, anybody considering these supplements also needs to take into account a number of issues such as whether they’re are aimed towards their event, the cost in taking the supplements and remember that responses and effects can be individual and depend on genotype, training and nutritional status.