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Jacob Calkins

Mrs. Brower

2nd hour Advanced Composition

19 October 2018

Dietary Supplements and Athletes

The journal article, ​Performance Level Affects the Dietary Supplement Intake of Both

Individual and Team Sports Athletes​, written by Ifigenia Giannopoulou, Kostantinos Noustos,

Nikolaos Apostolidis, Ioannis Bayios, and George P. Nassis, was published in March of 2013.

The main idea of the article is that dietary supplements, D.S. for short, affect the performance

differently in individual athletes compared to athletes on a team. The thesis presented in the

article is that dietary supplements are taken differently to increase performance level, in respect

to a team sport and individual athletes. Based on the authors’ data, they believe that individual

athletes are more likely to take dietary supplements. The authors of the journal article created an

accurate conclusion by effectively using data gathering techniques that are thorough and by

using reader-friendly visual aids.

The journal article explained research that was conducted with people, athletes and

non-athletes, of a Mediterranean background. They were given an anonymous questionnaire to

fill out about dietary supplements that they had used in the past month. This questionnaire was

given to 2,845 people, and it was the largest study done on dietary supplement intake to date.

The people they used came from all backgrounds, and the main difference between the two pools

of people was whether or not they were on a team sport or they were individual athletes. The

questionnaire was designed to diagnose what supplements the two pools took, and how often
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these supplements were taken. The supplements that were used most often were protein/amino

acids, creatine, and caffeine. In the conclusion of the article, the authors stated that performance

level was affected positively by D.S. intake, and D.S. intake was more common among

individual athletes.

The first way the article proves their conclusion was by gathering data that was relevant

to the study. They use a questionnaire with a design that was focused on gathering the data they

needed to come to their conclusion. The questionnaire was reviewed and supported by the

“health and sport nutrition professionals and researchers at the University of Athens”

(Giannopoulou et al). Since the questionnaire was approved by health professionals, their data

was more likely to be accepted as accurate. The other way that their data gathering techniques

helped them come to their conclusion was by using a large pool of subjects in their study. The

2,845 participants made it “the first comprehensive study on a large population sample of

Mediterranean athletes... offers some insight on dietary supplementation practices”

(Giannopoulou et al). The reason this makes their conclusion more accepted and believable

would be that larger studies contain more data, so a conclusion based on more data would be

considered to be more accurate.

Another way that the article supports its conclusion was by using visual aids that are

appropriate to the topic. The authors used visual aids, such as bar graphs and charts, to explain

the data that they collected from the questionnaire. The authors do this in “Figure 1,” to show the

impact on training volume and prevalence of dietary supplement intake (Giannopoulou et al).

The ideas in “Figure 1,” were first explained in the text and then this data was simplified by

being put into a graph (Giannopoulou et al). The reason this would be helpful is that it allows the
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reader to see the same information in two different ways. This gives the article repetition which

helps the reader understand the information in the text. The article does this again in “Table 1,”

but in a different way (Giannopoulou et al). This table divides the information into an easy to

read and understand format; therefore, it allows the reader to thoroughly understand the difficult

text present in the article. The reason this helps is that not all readers, like athletes, will

completely understand the text, and by putting it in a table format, it allows for easier

comprehension.

Overall, the authors of the journal article do an excellent job of getting to a correct

conclusion by using data gathering techniques and by using visual aids. The article uses a large

sample of participants in the study, making the study one of a kind. The visual aids in the article

support the text in an easier to understand format. Overall, the ideas in the article make a

compelling argument that performance level would be enhanced by the use of dietary

supplements. Something to consider after reading this article would be how can dietary

supplements improve an athletes ability.

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Work Cited

Giannopoulou, Ifigenia, et al. “Performance Level Affects the Dietary Supplement Intake of

Both Individual

and Team Sports Athletes.” ​Journal of Sports Science & Medicine​, vol. 12, no. 1, Mar.

2013, pp.

190–196. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=91530292&site=ehost-live.