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Lee, Kang, Paik, and Song: Use of Dietary Supplements and Determinants of Taking Dietary Supplements by Gender in the Korean Population: Using the 4th Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2009)
Research Article

Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2017; 22(4): 347-355.

Published online: 31 August 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2017.22.4.347

Use of Dietary Supplements and Determinants of Taking Dietary Supplements by Gender in the Korean Population: Using the 4th Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2009)

Yun Jung Lee1, Minji Kang1, Hee Young Paik1, YoonJu Song2

1Department of Food and Nutrition, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

2Major of Food and Nutrition, The Catholic University of Korea, Bucheon, Korea.

Corresponding author: YoonJu Song. Department of Food and Nutrition, 43, Jibong-ro, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do 14662, Korea. Tel: (02) 2164-4681, Fax: (02) 2164-6583, yjsong@catholic.ac.kr

Received 20 June 2017       Revised 5 August 2017       Accepted 18 August 2017

Copyright © 2017 The Korean Society of Community Nutrition

The Korean Society of Community Nutrition

(open-access):

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

Although dietary supplements use in Korea has been rapidly increasing and women are more likely to take dietary supplements more than men, only a few studies have been conducted to investigate factors contributing to gender differences in dietary supplement use in the Korean population. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of dietary supplement use and also identify gender-specific key factors that contribute to it using the data of the 4th KNHANES.

Methods

Subjects were divided into user and non-user groups according to the answer given to the question that asked whether they had used any dietary supplement for more than 2 weeks on a regular basis during the previous year. Factors related to dietary supplement use were examined by general characteristics, health behavior and eating behavior.

Results

Prevalence of dietary supplement use was 13.6% for men and 20.6% for women. Users were more likely to be middle-aged, have higher income and education, have a spouse, or reside in dong areas in both men and women. Regarding health behaviors, men with desirable lifestyle behavior were more likely to take dietary supplements, while men who smoked were less likely to take dietary supplements. Regarding disease history, both men and women with a current disease had higher odds of taking supplements. With regard to dietary behavior, frequent eating out and nutrition attitude were associated with higher odds of taking supplements in both men and in women.

Conclusions

Health or dietary behavior related factors that were associated with taking supplements differed by gender. These findings can be useful for planning gender-specific dietary education and health programs.

Keywords: dietary supplements, gender, health behavior, disease history, dietary behavior

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Prevalence of supplement use across age groups by gender

All analyses including prevalence of dietary supplements accounted for the complex sampling design effect and appropriate sampling weights of the national survey using PROC SURVEY procedure in the SAS program.
Rao-Scott chi-square p values were obtained using PROC SURVEYFREQ, ***0.001, **0.01.
kjcn-22-347-g001
Table 1

General characteristics of dietary supplement users among Korean adults aged 20 years or more by gender

kjcn-22-347-i001

1) All analyses including prevalence of dietary supplements accounted for the complex sampling design effect and appropriate sampling weights of the national survey using PROC SURVEY procedure in the SAS program.

Table 2

Lifestyle behavior of supplement users among Korean adults aged 20 years or more by gender

kjcn-22-347-i002

1) All analyses including prevalence of dietary supplements accounted for the complex sampling design effect and appropriate sampling weights of the national survey using PROC SURVEY procedure in the SAS program. Odds Ratios and 95% confidence intervals from multivariate logistic regression analyses adjusted with age, education level, household income, spouse and residential area.

2) Healthy group included subjects having at least one of desirable behaviors with regard to drinking, smoking and physical activity.

Table 3

Health status and disease history of supplement users among Korean adults aged 20 years or more by gender

kjcn-22-347-i003

1) All analyses including prevalence of dietary supplements accounted for the complex sampling design effect and appropriate sampling weights of the national survey using PROC SURVEY procedure in the SAS program. Odds Ratios and 95% confidence intervals from multivariate logistic regression analyses adjusted with age, education level, household income, spouse and residential area.

2) Disease history was determined by having all available diseases that had been assessed in the KNHANES, which included cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, respiratory, digestive system, endocrine metabolic, cancer and other chronic conditions.

3) Metabolic disease was determined having at least one disease of dyslipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes.

Table 4

Dietary behaviors of supplement users among Korean adults aged 20 years or more by gender

kjcn-22-347-i004

1) All analyses including prevalence of dietary supplements accounted for the complex sampling design effect and appropriate sampling weights of the national survey using PROC SURVEY procedure in the SAS program. Odds Ratios and 95% confidence intervals from multivariate logistic regression analyses adjusted with age, education level, household income, spouse, residential area, smoking, self-assessed health and disease history.

2) It included three attitudes of nutrition education, knowing guidelines of diets, reading nutrient labels.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the research fund, 2017 of the Catholic University of Korea.

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ORCID iDs

YoonJu Song
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4764-5864

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