Supplement Use of Age-related Chronic Disease Outpatients in Korea

초록

In order to investigate the supplements use in the middle-aged and elderly age-related chronic disease outpatients during the last one year, a cross-sectional survey was conducted from July to December in 2001. The subject were 1702(male 731, female 971) age-related chronic disease outpatients aged over 50 years. Data were collected using a standardized questionnaire by in-person interviews. Prevalence of supplements use and different categories of supplements taken by subjects were examined using SPSS statistical package. Supplements were used by 48.9% of the subjects. Mean kinds of dietary supplement taken by subjects were 1.7 and Chinese medicine was the most commonly used supplements in male and female subjects. Among the reasons of using supplements, health promotion ranked the highest. Most of supplement users, however, did not know or know roughly about the health claims of their supplements. Subjects reported the information source on supplements as family, friends or relatives followed by doctors or pharmacist. Dietary supplement use was significantly associated with demographic factors such as education, pocket money and health-related lifestyles such as exercise and smoking and nutritional knowledge. The subjects with supplement use had significantly higher nutritional risk factors, and lower self-reported health status compared to those without supplement use. However, the subjects with supplement use had higher nutritional knowledge, desirable food habits and more concern about health compared to those without supplement use. There was a negative correlation between nutritional risk factors and other scores of nutritional knowledge. Also there was a positive correlation between nutritional risk factors and age. Supplement users had significantly higher mean nutrient intakes calculated from food frequency questionnaire compared to those without supplement use, which might suggest overuse of supplements.