CRN announces second year of ‘Life … supplemented’ educational campaign

WASHINGTON The Council for Responsible Nutrition today announced that its “Life ... supplemented” nutritional supplement awareness campaign is continuing for the second year, will be supported by physicians as spokespeople, and that recent study results showed that more healthcare professionals recommend patients take supplements—and take supplements themselves.

Results of the 2008 Healthcare Professionals Impact Study, an overview of attitudes on supplement use by cardiologists, dermatologists and orthopedics, revealed that professionals in these healthcare fields recommend and also use dietary supplements for wellness and enhanced health. The study also said that practitioners in these fields believe supplement use has gone more mainstream than five years ago.

Of orthopedic specialists, 73 percent said that they take supplements and 91 percent said that they recommend supplements to their patients. Of the pool of cardiologists, 57 percent said that they regularly take supplements and 72 percent reported that they recommend them to their patients. And, 79 percent of the dermatologists surveyed said they take supplements, and 66 percent said that they recommend them.

The survey pool included 300 specialists from each field with a margin of error of 3.3 percent.

CRN has also named three healthcare professionals who will serve as spokespeople for the “Life … supplemented” campaign. Jeannette Graf, a dermatologist based in New York, cardiothoracic surgeon William Cooper of Emory University and UCLA orthopedic specialist Nick Shamie will speak on behalf of the benefits of supplements.

“We learned from the 2007 HCP Impact Study that physicians and nurses are taking supplements as part of a proactive wellness regimen that also includes healthy diet and regular exercise,” Judy Blatman, senior vice president of communications at CRN said. “With the second year of this study, we were able to dive into specific specialties and find similar trends, further demonstrating the important role for doctors in incorporating dietary supplements as an integral part of wellness.”

The 2008 study followed a similar 2007 HCP Impact study conducted by CRN which concluded about 72 percent of physicians and 89 percent of nurses use dietary supplements themselves. Of the physicians, 79 percent and 82 percent of the nurses involved in that survey said they recommend dietary supplements to patients.