ABSTRACT
It is difficult to say when the first nutrition supplements were utilized. For example, it is legend that in 4000 B.C. the Persian physician Melampus provided iron supplements to Persian sailors to compensate for hemorrhagic losses resulting from battle wounds. While the origin of nutrition supplementation is somewhat vague, the enthusiasm for their appli cation in modem times goes without question. Approximately half of the American popu lation utilizes one or more nutrition supplements daily. This includes 48% of children ages 3 to 5 years of age, 35.8% of Americans ages 20 to 29,46.2% for ages 50 to 59, and 50.6% for those 80 years older. The nutrition supplement industry has never enjoyed greater sales and has developed into a multibillion dollar industry worldwide. In the U.S. alone, $8.2 bil lion were spent on nutrition supplements in 1995. More globally, the world as a whole spent $28.2 billion on supplements that year. Thus, the U.S. accounted for about 30% of total supplement sales that year. For sport supplements alone, Americans spent $800 mil lion in 1995, while all of Europe spent only 400 million. Sport supplements are used to improve athletic performance, either training-or competition-related. Their purported benefits include increased power and strength, increased endurance, increased muscular ity, and improvement in certain psychological aspects that are relative to athletic perfor mance.
