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Dietary supplements are regularly used by a majority of the American population, and usage by health professionals is also common. There is considerable interest in usage patterns within the population and in the reasons for using dietary supplements. The “Life...supplemented” Healthcare Professionals 2008 Impact Study (HCP Impact Study) surveyed usage of dietary supplements by physicians in three specialties: cardiology, dermatology, and orthopedics.

The HCP Impact Study was conducted online by Ipsos Public Affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), a trade association of the dietary supplement industry. Respondents were 900 physicians, including 300 each from three specialties - cardiology, dermatology, and orthopedics.

Fifty-seven percent of cardiologists said they use dietary supplements at least occasionally, as did 75% of dermatologists and 73% of orthopedists. The product most commonly reported to be used was a multivitamin, but over 25% in each specialty said they used omega-3 fatty acids and over 20% said they used some botanical supplements.

Regular dietary supplement use was reported by 37% of cardiologists, 59% of dermatologists, and 50% of orthopedists. Seventy-two percent of cardiologists, 66% of dermatologists, and 91% of orthopedists reported recommending dietary supplements to their patients.

The primary reason given for recommending dietary supplements to patients was for heart health or lowering cholesterol for the cardiologists; benefits for skin, hair and nails for the dermatologists; and bone and joint health for the orthopedists.

Conclusions: Reported dietary supplement use was relatively common in this sample of physicians, and when they recommended dietary supplements to patients, they tended to do so for reasons related to their specialty.

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doi:10.1186/1475-2891-10-20

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.