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Defence Health HubPerformance Supplements for Military Personnel – do we need them?
MAJ Jacques Rousseau discusses the pros and cons of taking supplements
Performance Supplements for Military Personnel – do we need them?
Performance Supplements for Military Personnel – do we need them?
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right well good afternoon to those of you here thank you for coming along and for those online
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watching uh welcome so just a quick introduction I'm am major J Russo I'm
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the officer in charge of the joint support group um Human Performance hell
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and obviously part of the New Zealand Defense Force but what I'm going to do today talk you about supplements but the
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focus for today is supplement use for military personnel so whether you in
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uniform or not it does also fit you or does have implications for you as well
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so first of all let's have a look here who of you
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here take supplements yeah most of us take
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supplements and why do we take supplements I know a lot of ladies you
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take supplements to lose weight u a lot of males use supplements because they
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want to increase muscle mass and increase energy expenditure um the trick
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is do these supplements work and we'll find out as we go WR and supplements are
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really all over the place I mean I think one of the highest successes in
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marketing has to be the supplement industry CU they're all over the place and and there's so many of them uh if
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you just have to look at going outside into your Pharmacy uh your supermarket
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and our favorite one Chemist Warehouse you just walk in there and you are bombarded with supplements and they e
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accessible uh and a lot of people take them we know this because if we look at
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some of the stats we've found here um this is from the New Zealand Ministry of
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Defense so 48% of new zealanders aged 50 years and over do take
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supplements right the most common supplements are fish oil and Omega-3s
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and vitamins and or minerals now it's saying that that those supplements are more in
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the mature age group other supplements such as protein
2:23
powders uh creatine what we call the Sports supplements or the performance
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supplements they more for the younger generation so I look at sort of you know the
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18 I probably go as far as the 30 year olds where they do take more of the sports performance supplements um so 30%
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of adults 65 and older take four or more supplements of any kind and I guess
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that's also the thing of you know we want to stay younger for longer and a lot of these supplements promise US you
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know Eternal Youth and beautiful skin and all sorts of wonderful things that
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we would like to head if we come down and we look at the military population now again so better
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research has been done uh in the US 53% of US Army soldiers report use of
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supplements but if you look at the Australians 72% of Australian Defense
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Force Pur report use of supplements so we've just completed a
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supplement survey amongst our using Defense Force personnel and that
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data is being analyzed at the moment so we worked with defense science and technology so the good Folks up at
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defense Science and Technology are looking at the data at this stage so we'll soon have results on that and we
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think we might too different to the Australian Defense Force because there's a lot of similarities with us and of
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course Sports supplements they are more frequently consumed by males than
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females particularly in the military I mean you don't have to go far in the
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military population to find supplements you just have to go to the gyms our unit
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gymnasiums and you'll see people you know taking the the supplements um and
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interestingly when you ask a lot of the young s or young soldiers why do you take supplements and the answer we get
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is because I want to be big and I want to be strong but we all know that taking a
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supplement on its own is not going to make you begin wrong you know and taking supplements doesn't always work for
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everybody there's individual responses to supplements you can't just go that's
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a supplement for everyone that blanket dispensing your supplement does not
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work um so we look at particularly once again focusing on military personnel so
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first of all you know who are military personnel what are milc Personnel so the def definition there is for someone
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who's classified as a military person or military personnel as someone who serves in the armed forces so that is all of us
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here whether you're in uniform or not we serve in the Arm Forces but more than
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that we're going to look mostly at those that are in uniform and how this affects
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our un uniform personal and why do we need supplements or why do we not need
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supplements so if we have a look at our military personality again um military
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duties and military training can be physically demanding um so there's rigorous
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training as prolonged physical activity and stressful occupational conditions
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and when you're in these conditions your body does need more nutrients it needs
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more food so you've got to be able to get your work done and sometimes food is
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not readily available I mean we have to look at some of the uh deployments that
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our people on particularly off sudden comes to mind where we do have some
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issues around nutrition there because fresh fruit and vegetables is not always available so what do you need to do to
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support the dietry requirements or the operational needs of our people do you
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provide supplements don't you provide supplements do you provide different kinds of food or don't you so these are
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things that we always have to look at and we have done a bit of work and I'll get onto that a bit later on how
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sustained operations and sustained exercise does affect you
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physiologically cool um so looking at some of these key nutritional challenges that you have in
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the military you're going to have increased energy expenditure you know high levels of physical activity and
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they going to raise your energy needs okay so you need more macronutrients
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like your carbohydrates your proteins and your fats but if you don't have a
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lot of food or you don't have a lot of food coming how are you going to get this you need that energy expenditure
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you got to do your job properly then we look at the micro requirements so these are your um
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irons magnesiums those nutrients that we need and often if we haven't got enough
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of those we're not ingesting enough of those that's going to impair function so you're going to get fatigued
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easier and then then you're not going to be able to function cognitively as well because when the body starts fatiguing
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decision making is also going to be effective then the ability to make good and time decisions is also not what it
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should be and then of course we have um oxidative stress so intense physical
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exertion uh and of course the environmental stresses they increase oxidative stress so there's too many of
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these free radicals floating around the body and you got to get rid of them so you got to take antioxidants to get rid
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of these so where do these antioxidants come from you know do we need to take
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some supplements or do we have enough fresh fruit and vegetables that's often a
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challenge so here we go if we look at some stuff that's happening
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physiologically in our body so this is work we've been doing uh during sustained operation so you can have a
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look here this is a 4-day field exercise with little sleep uh very little
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food over a period for and carrying quite a heavy weight P pack loading so
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what we did here we looked at the urinary bu markers so it's just simple dipstick analysis what's happening so
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you can see here we look at B Rubin ketones blood and protein so the big one B Rubin is when they got lot of rig
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butts out turn over uh ketones ketones you what ketones are when you've got no
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more carbohydrates or glycogen then your body's going to start producing more
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ketones because you're going into fat oxidation you're using fat as energy because there's no more carbs the
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glycogen stores are gone uh and then of course blood um you do find blood in the
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urine and that's also got to do with red blood cell uh muscle uh stress on on the
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muscular system so that's not too bad then of course protein we do find increases in protein and all this is ex
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transient so it doesn't last for long once the exercise is finished you can see after there um post exercise we've
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all gone down to Baseline but I wanted to show you this because this is really important because this tells us you have
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to have good recovery and you have to have good nutrition so when we start the exercise we can see our ketones rise
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quite significantly and then kind of ground there 36 hours 60 hours the body
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has depleted its glycogen stores because you're not getting enough nutrients in the body where do you get
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them from you need food right and then as the exercise completes the end of the
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exercise we see the ketones have gone now so we've provided the soldiers here
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with good recovery good recovery meals so they've had uh protein they have some carbs theyve had
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electrolytes and that means our recovery is is where it wants to be now
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militaries across the world do not do recovery well at all and we're trying to
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introduce good recovery programs better and part of your recovery has to be your
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nutrition so in uh situations like this you don't have a lot of food there's not
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a lot of food going around so your body's going to start adapting now the question is do you provide
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soldiers in situations like this with supplements or do you provide them with food supplements are easy because they
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package really well you and you know undo a little bar with stop it and you got some good nutrients there whereas
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providing fresh fruit and vegetables during sustained operation or on a deployment is sometimes difficult it's
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not always easy so the question now is supplementation or or hot boxing hot
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boxing is all right if you're in Wu but if you're somewhere you know like um Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever can you
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have a hot box probably not if you've been out in the field for 3 4 days it's
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even more difficult to have fresh fruit and vegetables so there's the question do we supplement or
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don't um we do know that supplements do
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have benefits okay we've just seen that slide there so supplements can improve
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physical performance they have the ability to improve physical performance
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um they do help with muscle function and we do know that supplements do help with
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recovery they definitely do um and that mental resilience I did mention that a
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little bit previously so proper uh nutrition supported by supplements when
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needed can give us better cognitive function
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that's your decision making ability you don't want to be out there and you're really tired fatigued and the cognitive
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function has gone down the brain and you have to make quick decisions that could be lifethreatening
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you know if you haven't got that then what you can to do is going to go down the drain but not just for you but for
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those that are with you so supplements do have benefits the big thing with
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using supplements is when where and how do we take them and what type supplements do we
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take and if we look at the military once again these are common supplements that
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we find that military personnel C so protein and
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creatin very very popular um multivitamins and minerals very popular
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as well uh M of vitamins and minerals probably in the more mature group dare I
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say that um the protein supplements and the creatin supplements are kind of more popular in the the younger age group you
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know those youngsters who want to build muscle mass and get quick fre and fast whatever um and then of course IR
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supplementation can be quite popular with females because we know you know
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females do have IR deficiencies when it's high high intensity exercises being
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done and this deficiency that's also going to affect performance and also IR deficiency and the men menstrual cycle
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often go handy hand so IR supplementation is sometimes necessary and is sometimes you by
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females all right um so now supplements
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the big word here is supplements May benefit Health not saying they do but they may benefit so if you look at
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vitamin B12 I mean it can help move in blood cells keep them healthy and make
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DNA and prevent anemia work is made folic acid okay
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reduce birth effects when pregnant vitamin D which can strengthen bones we
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also do know with some of researchers done if uh recruits lack in vitamin D
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and does fit performance um calcium GR Calum and bone
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health vitamin C and E good for cell damage can prevent that fish oil a lot
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of people take fish oil the thing with fish oil if you want
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to take enough fish oil to have the benefits and effects that they claim you
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got to take a lot of fish water right um vitamin
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A slow down vision loss and macular degeneration that's just degeneration of
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the eyes and you start losing central vision so you the peripheral vision but
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is solid but you can't see you know you can see what's going on on the outside um then zinc uh skin Health once again
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vision loss and age related macular degeneration again okay so some of these
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supplements can help right but if you look at all these supplements here again you can get
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supplements from a well balanced diet right we don't have to go buy all
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these tons and tons of I know people would take handfuls of supplements every day and that's just going to make your
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urine very very expensive because your body takes what it wants and it gets rid of the of the
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rest and some supplements particularly your vitamins
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um uh your body just only needs small amounts of those and you get them from
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your nutrients from your meals because sometimes body doesn't make those so you
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have to take them but good nutrition not always the supplements um and melatonin is another
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one so a lot of people take melatonin when they can't sleep a lot of people will take melon when they flying it can
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help you sleep can help you go to sleep but your body also makes melatonin produces melatonin so if you're taking
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too much of these supplements then your body says well hey I'm getting these
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from another source I don't need to make this anymore and it actually stops producing a lot of these so that's one
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of the dangers of of overuse taking too many
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supplements um this is a sports or performance supplements going to stop
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carry on a little bit here because these are the supplements that are most commonly used by out of fence force
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people not just out FS but a lot of fs and as I said before Sports and
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performance supplements is supplements are taken because we want to improve performance a lot of the young soldiers
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want to get bigger and stronger um a lot of our female soldiers also want to
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improve their performance so they also take supplements but a lot of females are more in to take weight loss
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supplements rather than Sports Performance supplements but they take supplements
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supplements are often taken without any consideration or what can happen to you if you're taking too many
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supplements and that's the danger and there we go they are so easily
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available I you just got to walk down I mean any store or whatever you can find
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supplements you can find them there's thousands that you walk into some of the barracks and you know these these big
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buckets full of supplements and then often young soldiers or young servicemen
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and mov will take supplements instead of meals and a supplement is is exactly
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what it says it's a supplement it's not a meal replacement it's a supplement
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they just supplement your meals if they to supplement your nutrition plans okay and
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supplements you know you shouldn't really take them Willy mly I've had some uh youngers ask me you know well if I
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take this protein is it going to make me big and strong well are you taking the protein
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are you exercising no I'm just taking the protein you're just going to get fat you're just going to put on a lot of of
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fat if you just going to drink protein powders all day not doing anything you know um so once again sports supplements
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protein powder the most commonly used supplement that's the one that I mean
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that's really used a lot and if you look at D soldiers when they go on
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deployments they use hes of supplements because they are so e easily available
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particularly during deployment particular if we deployed with our American counterparts and the trouble
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with the supplements that they get from overseas they're not controlled so they
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might have stuff in them that you don't know you know are they good for you are
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they bad for you or are they ban substances so you'll often see young soldiers going away on Theo they come
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back and they really bulked up the head man they just Tak in all these supplements right so yeah supplements
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easy to get a hold of um creatine is another one that a lot of soldiers will like to take now what does creatine do
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creatine gives you energy your body also makes creatine okay so creatine if
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you're going to take too much once again why should I make it when there's too much and taking too much creatine really
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can give you a lot of kidney problems a lot of research has been done
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uh on protein uh mentation and also creatine
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supplementation um there's benefits in both of those but also once again you
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know don't take too much uh Branch chain amino acids a lot of people will take uh
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they call it BCAAs your branch chain amino acid they also have benefits because your amino acids are the
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buolding blocks of muscle so you taking amino acids it might have some effects
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there but if you're doing your uh protein powder often protein powders do
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contain Branch chain amino acids so you're taking that plus that so you just have taking in too many amino acids um
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then the other ones your pre-workout and your post-workout drinks now those you're just wasting your money really
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because pre-workout and post-workout drinks they just a lot of sugar and
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caffeine I've tried pre-workout drinks thought I'd give it a go what's all this about and I got the
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and I've never taken it again because it just made me really shaky that's the caffeine in there they got keeps of
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caffeine in there and of course the sugar to give you that extra energy and then they got loads of stuff like yuana
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and I don't know what all in there supposed it to give you a big energy boost okay so if you want to take a
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pre-workout drink or supplement just take some coffee a nice
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long black does EX the same as what D do and then um protein if you want to get
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that protein post exercise chocolate milk is actually really good because it has protein and it has a
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bit of carbs in there as well so yep they are beneficial they do have benefits as I said um if we look at
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supplements here again uh so this is what these supplements tell us they'll do and what they promise us so you've
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got your whey protein your uh casine protein and you've got your critin and
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then of course right then we have our good old coffee so we protein
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convenient helps hit the protein goals supposedly best to take before during and after
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workouts casing um casing lasts a bit longer it takes
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longer to digest so if you want to you know have the longer periods of of protein then let
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the one so taking it overnight will help as well and then the creatine improves
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strength um improves anerobic capacity only take 3 to 5 grams a day any time of
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the day so these are what they tell us is it true is it not some of it is
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all right and then of course coffee we know coffee's got caffeine in it it does give us energy there's a lot of work
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research has been done around caffeine ingestion and Sport and exercise um uh
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taking some caffeine before spr does give you a bit of a a boost but not
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that much I mean it's a 0.0 whatever perc um so yeah and great to take before
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you work out so if you're going to do a very heavy workout I don't know personally I wouldn't like to have a m
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of coffee or cup of coffee probably might SI but for a lot of people that
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probably W help because of caffeine boost for getting there um so here we go if we look at
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protein supplements this is a bit what the research tells us but if you look at this there's some key
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words in here all right and here we
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go um okay here we go as long as the training stus was
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sufficient okay so it's not just taking protein and off I go you've got to do
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some sort of training there so the training stimulus has to be there you've got to ex exerise um and here was the
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other one here protein exercise post exercise there's the word after exercise
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um and then you
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know so there we go prolonged intense exercise training
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so You' got to use protein if you want to use supplement use it some exercise or during
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exercise the thing about protein um and taking protein supplements particularly
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when you've had a high intensity physical activity or long duration type of activity what happens to the body we
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have what's called muscle protein breakdown and muscle protein
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synthesis so when you're exercising you're exercising pretty hard we have what's called muscle protein break down
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and that's when the muscles come like break down and then when you do your recovery then we have muscle protein
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synthesis so that's the rebuilding of the muscles and that's when the protein and amino acids actually do their job so
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post exercise your muscles are really really thirsty and hungry so that's when
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they use Protein that's in there the Bron strain amino acids uh and that's where the magic happens if you want to
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call it that it's not during the exercise where you bold muscle but the exercise is part of that whole process
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so muscle protein breakdown muscle protein synthesis that should go hand in hand and it's during muscle protein
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synthesis that you know the hypy happens and the strength brain start happening so you've
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got to go from the catabolic state where you're actually breaking down to the anabolic state where you are actually
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building again so if you go back and look at the slide where we had the ketones so that period that was a 4-day
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period you're working really hard you don't have a lot of food you don't have a lot of sleep that period of time the
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body's actually in a catabolic state so it's actually breaking down you're not getting the nutrients you need so post
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activity like that you need to have a good recovery period where you can go into that anabolic State again so there
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you need possibly some extra protein some extra carboh hydrain some electrolytes so you're turning that
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catabolic State back into an anabolic and we do see that when we do those um
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that monitoring after the that period then we do provide protein carvs uh and
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electrolytes but we don't give those that were on those
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exercises poaching powders we provide chocolate milk right and we provide we do give um
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some electrolytes but you need that because you have uh a really um
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catabolic State going on there and often there's not enough hydration going on as
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well so you need a bit of electrolytes to get that balance going again so
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protein powder chocolate mold um good feed pizzas you know probably not the
27:47
best but easy and convenient so you're getting a lot of your carbs back again so we want you to come back into that uh
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anabolic state state again because military personnel you do an exercise you do a deployment
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you've got to be ready to go again so if you're not recovered properly and you
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got to go onto the job again you're going to get hurt okay so providing good recovery
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programs good nutrition programs post exercise uh will help that recovery
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program decreases the risk of reinjury or injury which is what we we don't
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injury but we want we don't want you to get hurt okay uh then of course when you're
28:34
taking these supplements you've got to really be careful what are in
28:40
them because a lot of them particularly those supplements that are provided you know by
28:48
um Americans I say there um have got stuff in that probably aren't good for
28:56
us because the supplement industry in the US is not controlled okay so got to be really
29:03
careful so the big band supplements of course we know anabolic and other
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steroids absolute no no but you'll be surprised how easily some people can get
29:15
hold of them then we've got DHEA dehydro EP
29:22
andron really long worthy um and that's also a type of hormone
29:29
okay and also your body produces the adrenal glands produce that so if you're taking
29:35
too much but what we call as exogenous usage from outside of the body your body's going to go well i' got enough of
29:42
this why do I need to make it myself and there's lots of side effects of that as well the nausea headaches um bad
29:49
skin uh diuretics diaretics are often taken to lose
29:55
weight and a lot of sports that you know where you weight is is pretty important like wrestling Boxing you got to go for
30:02
weight games they will take a couple of diuretics before they lose a lot of um body fluid and they make the way in and
30:09
they go back and then they drink a lot of water again it's kind of cheating a little bit and then of course blood
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doping blood doping is not so much a supplement but blood doping is when you
30:20
know they take blood out of you uh and then I put it back into you so your red blood cell counts are actually high so
30:27
you got better use of oxygen okay the more red blood because what does what do red blood cells do they carry oxygen
30:34
around so if you got more o that cell have a lot more oxy
30:43
around um so yeah so what they do with blood doping they take blood out of you and they put your blood back in and it's
30:50
mainly endurance activities that do that um if a doing like adrenaline a good C
30:58
and then the other one that's becoming quite popular is known is human growth hormone
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hga and human growth hormone um gives you strength muscle M that sort of stuff
31:10
what does growth warm do makes us grow okay but once again too much of
31:17
those things is just not good for you or as a matter of fact any of those it's not going to be good for us at
31:24
all um so if you decide or if you want to take
31:31
supplements uh we don't say don't take supplements we don't ban
31:38
supplements with the Defense Force we want to tell you that yes there are supplements out there but be aware of
31:45
what you're taking so it's about education okay they can be beneficial
31:51
and then you know that you should be guided by Your Health Care Professionals to ensure safety and efficacy and
31:59
remember supplements like I said earlier on what a supplement does to me is not
32:05
going to the same as what it's going to do to you it's different we all react differently we can't have a blanket
32:11
approach to supplements right and overuse or inappropriate use of supplements can
32:18
lead to adverse effects and nutrient imbalances so if you're taking all these supplements and stuff that your body
32:25
produces itself then there's going to be imbalances there's too much of this to little that then your body's going to go
32:30
hey what's going on here and you're going to crash or something's going to go wrong um so we do have uh military
32:41
dietitians we have military uh nutritionist at the moment and medical officers so you know talk to them and
32:49
they can give you advice based on your needs you know what do you need do you need to take supplements um look at your
32:56
dietry intake and also what are you doing what are your operational
33:02
demands once again uh go back to op sudden where we know we need to look at
33:08
the what's happening with the nutrition program there uh and we have given a uh
33:14
advice to people going on on Su what to do because there's a lack of good solid
33:20
fresh fruit and vegetables so maybe you know you need to take some
33:26
extra food or maybe some supplements aren't too bad in that case and of course don't forget the
33:33
safety you make sure that the supplements you're using are safe
33:39
they're effective and free from contaminants and ban
33:45
substances because a lot of substance sorry a lot of uh these supplements have
33:51
a lot of crap in them they honestly do uh often they fold with a lot of empty
33:58
kind of cars that sort of stuff um so watch out read the label and does the
34:05
supplement say what it does the other thing is to look if there's any scientific
34:10
evidence around the supplement has it been tested um a lot of them will be but
34:16
a lot of them won't be so do you need supplements or do we
34:25
as military personnel do we need supplements if you're having a good well balanced
34:34
diet you probably don't need to take supplements but then as before as we
34:40
looked at that's depending on what you're doing what your activities if you high intensity um long duration type of
34:48
physical activity you probably can look at supplementing okay but once again you
34:55
don't have to take supplements if you don't really need to you can do chocolate milk or just milk you know
35:02
fruit veggies that sort of stuff get your get your food and your your micronutrients your macronutrients from
35:09
good diet and it's not always easy in our meses to have good food sometimes it
35:16
can be a challenge but they're actually not too bad um so if you eat well from
35:21
the main food groups you know get the best possible spread of nutrients there's always salad you know
35:29
Iron zinc whatever um and lastly you know your money spent on supplements is
35:35
often better spend on healthy food but supplements are expensive they're not cheap they really
35:42
are expensive um we do know that with with our recruits picked up in wuru um
35:49
they're doing a lot of training there's a lot of um physical activity going on they
35:56
probably not sleeping as much as they can then we do have to look at you know the food in the Mist so we do like our
36:03
recruits to have snacks which would sometimes say well is that a supplement well not really a
36:10
supplement is something that's not food so we try and get them you know a bit of extra protein in the form of yogurt uh
36:17
we try and see that they get up and goes you know Peanut slabs or whatever um but
36:22
a supplement or a snack has to do what it's got to do and let's add some
36:29
nutrition um extra nutrition so the people or the recruits can
36:35
perform and also not have a lot of injuries so we want to decrease those
36:40
injury rates as well so good nutrition will decrease injury rates which is kind of what we struggle with a lot
36:50
um so just in conclusion here I can make you read it yourself
37:13
cool there's a lot of work that's been done in the space you know supplementation for military personnel
37:20
there's a lot of quite a bit of work goes around uh uh with the use of supplementation especially with Special
37:27
Forces Special Forces operation uh operators because they often uh operate
37:34
in extreme environments with little food uh and they also you know look at
37:40
um uh metabolic adaptations uh intermittent fasting uh
37:47
so how does that affect them will supplementation increase performance
37:52
will it make you better than the person who's trying to shoot you you know so we've got to keep say ah head of the
37:58
ball game it's exactly the same as in professional sport you know you always want the edge and I how do you keep that edge you
38:06
know do you use supplements do you not use supplements how do you use them how do you not use them um and supplements
38:13
are really interesting uh because if you find a supplement or sub supplement we know that protein powder can be
38:20
beneficial but with athletes particularly high performance athletes do tell then you know if you take one of
38:26
these it'll help they going take six you know same as with young soldiers you've
38:32
done you know a little bit of protein post excise will help can help
38:38
you they going take protein Powers before after doing whatever they just want a little bit more um and the
38:45
interesting thing as well about the statement here I take protein because I want to get Bak genetics plays a massive
38:53
role in you know hypertrophy and muscle size so you can drink as much protein as
38:59
you want to your mate might be nice and big and bulky but you're not going to look like him because your genetics is
39:04
not the same uh that's where you know it's individualized effect so often we have
39:10
youngsters who you know they just goofing the protein because they want to get big and all they're getting is is putting on the weight and they're
39:17
probably doing a bit of damage to the kidneys as well um but you know talk to the professionals people that can help
39:23
you there's some good um information on the Health Website as well around supplementation so have a look at that
39:29
and then you know a lot of the gym pdis are really good they've been talked as well and also the human form cell just
39:36
get hold of us and can help you out um and yep so it's up to the individual
39:43
you know do you want to use supplements or do you want to go down
39:48
the healthy eating pathway I still say the best way is good
39:55
healthy balanced diet but sometimes if we' seen here a little
40:01
bit of supplements can be beneficial if used correctly and make sure you know
40:07
what's in them and one doesn't fit
40:13
all good any questions yes you mention
40:19
Valentin and how it can affect your sleep um when I came back from America
40:25
last year P myself heaps of bottles of the
40:31
Melatonin CH yes and I started like eating two before
40:36
I went to bed this St out like five or
40:42
six I was like why is it not work anymore so if I stop taking them can I
40:47
reverse yes you can yes you
40:54
can so we just had a question about Mel and taking heaps of it um and then
41:02
person couldn't sleep but taking too much Melatonin is going to prevent you from sleeping melatonin you it's only a
41:08
certain amount you know that you need and once again your body does produce melatonin it helps us sleep if you're
41:15
taking too much it's oh geez there's too much going around now so no yeah was
41:21
just over time I felt like it wasn't working you need more and more and more and more
41:27
so you can reverse it but just go back to your normal habits I ran out anyway
41:33
last night was my last
41:38
one you're recy I'm recovery stuff anything
41:46
else great question um but things like magnesium I have heard and until today
41:52
believed that it would only support sleep if you had an existing
41:58
deficiency so I never really thought of it as supplementing as providing some more of that thing that would actually
42:05
you know be like work independently I suppose of
42:10
of what naturally produced so I was like oh well I don't have a deficiency so it's not going to support my sleep but I
42:17
know that a lot of people take magnesium for sleep yeah magnesium is is a popular supplement to take to Aid sleep because
42:25
magnesium does help us relax but once again if you're taking too much magnesium then it's going to C the
42:30
opposite and if you do have a deficiency in magnesium then probably yes it will
42:36
help but if you don't have any deficiencies then you know it's probably not going to do much
42:44
for you um a lot of a lot of supplements actually have Placebo
42:50
effects go to sleep so you do sleep um but yes I do know um magnesium is very
42:58
popular for assisting people sleep um you get deep sleep
43:03
magnesium uh that sort of stuff um and they make all sorts of claims it does help but once again look at the science
43:09
behind it you know is there good evidence that it works and where is the evidence come from you know are they
43:16
peer-reviewed articles or that does help um and once again if you look at the
43:23
research that spoke about um there's a lot of there's a lot of research about protein
43:29
because protein is very popular with Sport and it's also very popular in military so there's a lot of research
43:34
around protein it can be beneficial can is the word not that it is and you have
43:40
to take it um there's also quite a bit of research around creatin and they
43:45
what's creatine also can be beneficial but once again you're taking too much of
43:51
creatin kidney damage and then of course how much do it take and then as I said before a lot of people go oh creating
43:58
help creating works so I'll take double them am you know because I want to get bigger stronger faster that's that's
44:05
doesn't work um uh some of the supplements you'll see these research
44:12
and there's no conrete evidence that they work with that they don't work that's also who sponsors the research
44:18
you got to look at that because it might be the company that makes it that sponsor the research and they oh yeah
44:24
this is great you know but also read you know the conclusion is there enough
44:29
evidence that this does help and most of these supplements you'll find there's not much research about them it's all a
44:37
lot of it's hearsay and a lot of it's marketing and like magnesium for example
44:44
we know that magnesium does help us sleep so oh let's make magnesium and let's go magnesium makes you sleep and
44:52
oh yeah go by myself like and doesn't help maybe the first couple times you triy
44:59
because maybe that Placebo affected gas so yeah be it's just you know be
45:10
careful good food spinach some magnesi
45:16
Spanish and iron vegetables especially leafy
45:22
vegetables got a lot of good nutrients for for us you know um and Le good leafy
45:28
vegetables are really good for uh men particularly for prostate health so good leafy vegetables they
45:34
really help for that um salmon this fish oil and
45:39
salmon Amigo threes they're all in there uh but it's expensive you oh it's too expensive I'll
45:46
just pop a p you but that's not really the way but yeah so look at good food I
45:53
mean vitamin C is is another popular one that a lot of people take I take vitamin C every day
45:59
because I believe it help but um vitamin C trying to get a lot more vitamin C
46:04
from you know food you know C Food oranges they lots of vitamin C in
46:12
there yeah Zink meat great
46:17
meat good thinking yeah so
46:30
and then a lot of the other thing is a lot of people ask about weight loss
46:39
supplement but and um what they are are they definitely are and they thero
46:45
genetics or whatever they call it so they're supposed to boost your metabolism um I I've never taken any of
46:53
those and I some people swear by them uh but I'm not quite sure uh the best thing
47:00
for weight loss is diet and exercise and the most important one is Diet more than
47:07
exercise you know but calorie intake calorie expenditure and you know that's we all
47:13
know these things you know we all know but we always want the Quick Fix that's human nature we want the Quick Fix and
47:20
then we grab the supplements yeah oh this is going to make be skinny or this is going to make
47:25
be bulky or this is going to make be strong but they don't
47:33
always a question yes if if you've got
47:38
if you're on prescribed medication yes you've got all these different
47:44
supplements that do this that everything else should you check with your health
47:50
professional prior to deciding to go take magnesium or this protein power or
47:57
what can they sort of contradict each other yes yes so the question we had is
48:04
if you're on medication and you want to take supplements should you go to your health care professional before and the
48:11
answer to that is yes because some of the medication you uh take might also
48:18
have adverse effects on the medication you take yeah so a really good idea to
48:23
check with your Healthy professional before you decide to C
48:28
supplements because some of your medication might control um potassium levels or calcium levels all that sort
48:35
of stuff so if you're going to take supplements and you want to increase calcium but you've got medication that's
48:41
you know controlling calcium and it's going to be whoops no that's not that's not good I know potassium is one that
48:50
um cardiovascular patients normally take and then you know you don't want to take supplements that increase po rates or
48:57
sodium rates or whatever
49:02
yeah we have a question from the online audience uh what about supplements for enhancing
49:09
circulation for enhancing circulation
49:15
o supplements for enlar enhancing circulation they some out there that
49:22
supposedly will help with heart health but once again look at the research
49:27
that's been done uh um so probably circulation I don't know I'm not quite
49:34
familiar with that one to be honest uh probably looking at something like
49:39
cholesterol reducing agents that uh will help increase C and reduce cholesterol
49:46
um but once again if you're looking at circulation diet and exercise is probably the way to go
49:54
um you know what's the supplement that you're looking at and what is a claim to
50:00
do so I'm not familiar with that very good website that people could go to to
50:07
check when you're saying check the research yeah if you go to the the defense Health there some links in there
50:13
I have a look on those yeah yeah yeah so I know there's um yeah I know stattin to help reduce
50:24
cholesterol um and if you yeah you want to increase your circulation um big thing about
50:30
circulation uh if you got problems is you know what is the problem and why do
50:36
you want to increase circulation because circulation is often narrowing of arteries high cholesterol levels
50:44
um I'm not quite sure we more info around that one I know they are I know
50:50
they are but I wouldn't be quite sure about that one so yeah
50:57
I probably go for exercise rather than the supplement that's definitely going to increase your out there
51:23
yeah thank very much thank you very much you
right well good afternoon to those of you here thank you for coming along and for those online
0:12
watching uh welcome so just a quick introduction I'm am major J Russo I'm
0:19
the officer in charge of the joint support group um Human Performance hell
0:25
and obviously part of the New Zealand Defense Force but what I'm going to do today talk you about supplements but the
0:32
focus for today is supplement use for military personnel so whether you in
0:38
uniform or not it does also fit you or does have implications for you as well
0:44
so first of all let's have a look here who of you
0:50
here take supplements yeah most of us take
0:55
supplements and why do we take supplements I know a lot of ladies you
1:01
take supplements to lose weight u a lot of males use supplements because they
1:07
want to increase muscle mass and increase energy expenditure um the trick
1:13
is do these supplements work and we'll find out as we go WR and supplements are
1:19
really all over the place I mean I think one of the highest successes in
1:25
marketing has to be the supplement industry CU they're all over the place and and there's so many of them uh if
1:32
you just have to look at going outside into your Pharmacy uh your supermarket
1:37
and our favorite one Chemist Warehouse you just walk in there and you are bombarded with supplements and they e
1:44
accessible uh and a lot of people take them we know this because if we look at
1:51
some of the stats we've found here um this is from the New Zealand Ministry of
1:56
Defense so 48% of new zealanders aged 50 years and over do take
2:02
supplements right the most common supplements are fish oil and Omega-3s
2:09
and vitamins and or minerals now it's saying that that those supplements are more in
2:17
the mature age group other supplements such as protein
2:23
powders uh creatine what we call the Sports supplements or the performance
2:28
supplements they more for the younger generation so I look at sort of you know the
2:33
18 I probably go as far as the 30 year olds where they do take more of the sports performance supplements um so 30%
2:41
of adults 65 and older take four or more supplements of any kind and I guess
2:48
that's also the thing of you know we want to stay younger for longer and a lot of these supplements promise US you
2:54
know Eternal Youth and beautiful skin and all sorts of wonderful things that
2:59
we would like to head if we come down and we look at the military population now again so better
3:06
research has been done uh in the US 53% of US Army soldiers report use of
3:13
supplements but if you look at the Australians 72% of Australian Defense
3:19
Force Pur report use of supplements so we've just completed a
3:24
supplement survey amongst our using Defense Force personnel and that
3:31
data is being analyzed at the moment so we worked with defense science and technology so the good Folks up at
3:38
defense Science and Technology are looking at the data at this stage so we'll soon have results on that and we
3:44
think we might too different to the Australian Defense Force because there's a lot of similarities with us and of
3:51
course Sports supplements they are more frequently consumed by males than
3:56
females particularly in the military I mean you don't have to go far in the
4:01
military population to find supplements you just have to go to the gyms our unit
4:08
gymnasiums and you'll see people you know taking the the supplements um and
4:13
interestingly when you ask a lot of the young s or young soldiers why do you take supplements and the answer we get
4:20
is because I want to be big and I want to be strong but we all know that taking a
4:27
supplement on its own is not going to make you begin wrong you know and taking supplements doesn't always work for
4:33
everybody there's individual responses to supplements you can't just go that's
4:39
a supplement for everyone that blanket dispensing your supplement does not
4:44
work um so we look at particularly once again focusing on military personnel so
4:51
first of all you know who are military personnel what are milc Personnel so the def definition there is for someone
4:59
who's classified as a military person or military personnel as someone who serves in the armed forces so that is all of us
5:07
here whether you're in uniform or not we serve in the Arm Forces but more than
5:12
that we're going to look mostly at those that are in uniform and how this affects
5:17
our un uniform personal and why do we need supplements or why do we not need
5:25
supplements so if we have a look at our military personality again um military
5:31
duties and military training can be physically demanding um so there's rigorous
5:37
training as prolonged physical activity and stressful occupational conditions
5:43
and when you're in these conditions your body does need more nutrients it needs
5:49
more food so you've got to be able to get your work done and sometimes food is
5:55
not readily available I mean we have to look at some of the uh deployments that
6:00
our people on particularly off sudden comes to mind where we do have some
6:06
issues around nutrition there because fresh fruit and vegetables is not always available so what do you need to do to
6:13
support the dietry requirements or the operational needs of our people do you
6:19
provide supplements don't you provide supplements do you provide different kinds of food or don't you so these are
6:25
things that we always have to look at and we have done a bit of work and I'll get onto that a bit later on how
6:32
sustained operations and sustained exercise does affect you
6:38
physiologically cool um so looking at some of these key nutritional challenges that you have in
6:45
the military you're going to have increased energy expenditure you know high levels of physical activity and
6:52
they going to raise your energy needs okay so you need more macronutrients
6:58
like your carbohydrates your proteins and your fats but if you don't have a
7:03
lot of food or you don't have a lot of food coming how are you going to get this you need that energy expenditure
7:08
you got to do your job properly then we look at the micro requirements so these are your um
7:14
irons magnesiums those nutrients that we need and often if we haven't got enough
7:21
of those we're not ingesting enough of those that's going to impair function so you're going to get fatigued
7:28
easier and then then you're not going to be able to function cognitively as well because when the body starts fatiguing
7:37
decision making is also going to be effective then the ability to make good and time decisions is also not what it
7:45
should be and then of course we have um oxidative stress so intense physical
7:52
exertion uh and of course the environmental stresses they increase oxidative stress so there's too many of
7:58
these free radicals floating around the body and you got to get rid of them so you got to take antioxidants to get rid
8:05
of these so where do these antioxidants come from you know do we need to take
8:10
some supplements or do we have enough fresh fruit and vegetables that's often a
8:18
challenge so here we go if we look at some stuff that's happening
8:24
physiologically in our body so this is work we've been doing uh during sustained operation so you can have a
8:31
look here this is a 4-day field exercise with little sleep uh very little
8:39
food over a period for and carrying quite a heavy weight P pack loading so
8:46
what we did here we looked at the urinary bu markers so it's just simple dipstick analysis what's happening so
8:52
you can see here we look at B Rubin ketones blood and protein so the big one B Rubin is when they got lot of rig
9:00
butts out turn over uh ketones ketones you what ketones are when you've got no
9:06
more carbohydrates or glycogen then your body's going to start producing more
9:12
ketones because you're going into fat oxidation you're using fat as energy because there's no more carbs the
9:17
glycogen stores are gone uh and then of course blood um you do find blood in the
9:24
urine and that's also got to do with red blood cell uh muscle uh stress on on the
9:30
muscular system so that's not too bad then of course protein we do find increases in protein and all this is ex
9:38
transient so it doesn't last for long once the exercise is finished you can see after there um post exercise we've
9:45
all gone down to Baseline but I wanted to show you this because this is really important because this tells us you have
9:52
to have good recovery and you have to have good nutrition so when we start the exercise we can see our ketones rise
9:59
quite significantly and then kind of ground there 36 hours 60 hours the body
10:05
has depleted its glycogen stores because you're not getting enough nutrients in the body where do you get
10:12
them from you need food right and then as the exercise completes the end of the
10:18
exercise we see the ketones have gone now so we've provided the soldiers here
10:25
with good recovery good recovery meals so they've had uh protein they have some carbs theyve had
10:32
electrolytes and that means our recovery is is where it wants to be now
10:38
militaries across the world do not do recovery well at all and we're trying to
10:45
introduce good recovery programs better and part of your recovery has to be your
10:50
nutrition so in uh situations like this you don't have a lot of food there's not
10:56
a lot of food going around so your body's going to start adapting now the question is do you provide
11:02
soldiers in situations like this with supplements or do you provide them with food supplements are easy because they
11:10
package really well you and you know undo a little bar with stop it and you got some good nutrients there whereas
11:17
providing fresh fruit and vegetables during sustained operation or on a deployment is sometimes difficult it's
11:24
not always easy so the question now is supplementation or or hot boxing hot
11:32
boxing is all right if you're in Wu but if you're somewhere you know like um Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever can you
11:40
have a hot box probably not if you've been out in the field for 3 4 days it's
11:47
even more difficult to have fresh fruit and vegetables so there's the question do we supplement or
11:54
don't um we do know that supplements do
11:59
have benefits okay we've just seen that slide there so supplements can improve
12:05
physical performance they have the ability to improve physical performance
12:11
um they do help with muscle function and we do know that supplements do help with
12:17
recovery they definitely do um and that mental resilience I did mention that a
12:22
little bit previously so proper uh nutrition supported by supplements when
12:28
needed can give us better cognitive function
12:33
that's your decision making ability you don't want to be out there and you're really tired fatigued and the cognitive
12:41
function has gone down the brain and you have to make quick decisions that could be lifethreatening
12:46
you know if you haven't got that then what you can to do is going to go down the drain but not just for you but for
12:53
those that are with you so supplements do have benefits the big thing with
12:59
using supplements is when where and how do we take them and what type supplements do we
13:07
take and if we look at the military once again these are common supplements that
13:12
we find that military personnel C so protein and
13:17
creatin very very popular um multivitamins and minerals very popular
13:24
as well uh M of vitamins and minerals probably in the more mature group dare I
13:33
say that um the protein supplements and the creatin supplements are kind of more popular in the the younger age group you
13:40
know those youngsters who want to build muscle mass and get quick fre and fast whatever um and then of course IR
13:46
supplementation can be quite popular with females because we know you know
13:52
females do have IR deficiencies when it's high high intensity exercises being
13:58
done and this deficiency that's also going to affect performance and also IR deficiency and the men menstrual cycle
14:04
often go handy hand so IR supplementation is sometimes necessary and is sometimes you by
14:12
females all right um so now supplements
14:18
the big word here is supplements May benefit Health not saying they do but they may benefit so if you look at
14:25
vitamin B12 I mean it can help move in blood cells keep them healthy and make
14:31
DNA and prevent anemia work is made folic acid okay
14:39
reduce birth effects when pregnant vitamin D which can strengthen bones we
14:46
also do know with some of researchers done if uh recruits lack in vitamin D
14:52
and does fit performance um calcium GR Calum and bone
15:00
health vitamin C and E good for cell damage can prevent that fish oil a lot
15:06
of people take fish oil the thing with fish oil if you want
15:12
to take enough fish oil to have the benefits and effects that they claim you
15:18
got to take a lot of fish water right um vitamin
15:23
A slow down vision loss and macular degeneration that's just degeneration of
15:30
the eyes and you start losing central vision so you the peripheral vision but
15:35
is solid but you can't see you know you can see what's going on on the outside um then zinc uh skin Health once again
15:44
vision loss and age related macular degeneration again okay so some of these
15:50
supplements can help right but if you look at all these supplements here again you can get
15:57
supplements from a well balanced diet right we don't have to go buy all
16:04
these tons and tons of I know people would take handfuls of supplements every day and that's just going to make your
16:10
urine very very expensive because your body takes what it wants and it gets rid of the of the
16:17
rest and some supplements particularly your vitamins
16:22
um uh your body just only needs small amounts of those and you get them from
16:29
your nutrients from your meals because sometimes body doesn't make those so you
16:35
have to take them but good nutrition not always the supplements um and melatonin is another
16:41
one so a lot of people take melatonin when they can't sleep a lot of people will take melon when they flying it can
16:47
help you sleep can help you go to sleep but your body also makes melatonin produces melatonin so if you're taking
16:53
too much of these supplements then your body says well hey I'm getting these
16:59
from another source I don't need to make this anymore and it actually stops producing a lot of these so that's one
17:05
of the dangers of of overuse taking too many
17:10
supplements um this is a sports or performance supplements going to stop
17:16
carry on a little bit here because these are the supplements that are most commonly used by out of fence force
17:22
people not just out FS but a lot of fs and as I said before Sports and
17:27
performance supplements is supplements are taken because we want to improve performance a lot of the young soldiers
17:33
want to get bigger and stronger um a lot of our female soldiers also want to
17:39
improve their performance so they also take supplements but a lot of females are more in to take weight loss
17:45
supplements rather than Sports Performance supplements but they take supplements
17:50
supplements are often taken without any consideration or what can happen to you if you're taking too many
17:56
supplements and that's the danger and there we go they are so easily
18:04
available I you just got to walk down I mean any store or whatever you can find
18:10
supplements you can find them there's thousands that you walk into some of the barracks and you know these these big
18:17
buckets full of supplements and then often young soldiers or young servicemen
18:22
and mov will take supplements instead of meals and a supplement is is exactly
18:29
what it says it's a supplement it's not a meal replacement it's a supplement
18:35
they just supplement your meals if they to supplement your nutrition plans okay and
18:43
supplements you know you shouldn't really take them Willy mly I've had some uh youngers ask me you know well if I
18:50
take this protein is it going to make me big and strong well are you taking the protein
18:55
are you exercising no I'm just taking the protein you're just going to get fat you're just going to put on a lot of of
19:02
fat if you just going to drink protein powders all day not doing anything you know um so once again sports supplements
19:12
protein powder the most commonly used supplement that's the one that I mean
19:18
that's really used a lot and if you look at D soldiers when they go on
19:24
deployments they use hes of supplements because they are so e easily available
19:29
particularly during deployment particular if we deployed with our American counterparts and the trouble
19:36
with the supplements that they get from overseas they're not controlled so they
19:41
might have stuff in them that you don't know you know are they good for you are
19:47
they bad for you or are they ban substances so you'll often see young soldiers going away on Theo they come
19:53
back and they really bulked up the head man they just Tak in all these supplements right so yeah supplements
20:00
easy to get a hold of um creatine is another one that a lot of soldiers will like to take now what does creatine do
20:08
creatine gives you energy your body also makes creatine okay so creatine if
20:14
you're going to take too much once again why should I make it when there's too much and taking too much creatine really
20:20
can give you a lot of kidney problems a lot of research has been done
20:26
uh on protein uh mentation and also creatine
20:31
supplementation um there's benefits in both of those but also once again you
20:36
know don't take too much uh Branch chain amino acids a lot of people will take uh
20:43
they call it BCAAs your branch chain amino acid they also have benefits because your amino acids are the
20:50
buolding blocks of muscle so you taking amino acids it might have some effects
20:55
there but if you're doing your uh protein powder often protein powders do
21:01
contain Branch chain amino acids so you're taking that plus that so you just have taking in too many amino acids um
21:09
then the other ones your pre-workout and your post-workout drinks now those you're just wasting your money really
21:16
because pre-workout and post-workout drinks they just a lot of sugar and
21:22
caffeine I've tried pre-workout drinks thought I'd give it a go what's all this about and I got the
21:30
and I've never taken it again because it just made me really shaky that's the caffeine in there they got keeps of
21:36
caffeine in there and of course the sugar to give you that extra energy and then they got loads of stuff like yuana
21:44
and I don't know what all in there supposed it to give you a big energy boost okay so if you want to take a
21:50
pre-workout drink or supplement just take some coffee a nice
21:56
long black does EX the same as what D do and then um protein if you want to get
22:02
that protein post exercise chocolate milk is actually really good because it has protein and it has a
22:10
bit of carbs in there as well so yep they are beneficial they do have benefits as I said um if we look at
22:17
supplements here again uh so this is what these supplements tell us they'll do and what they promise us so you've
22:24
got your whey protein your uh casine protein and you've got your critin and
22:30
then of course right then we have our good old coffee so we protein
22:35
convenient helps hit the protein goals supposedly best to take before during and after
22:42
workouts casing um casing lasts a bit longer it takes
22:48
longer to digest so if you want to you know have the longer periods of of protein then let
22:55
the one so taking it overnight will help as well and then the creatine improves
23:01
strength um improves anerobic capacity only take 3 to 5 grams a day any time of
23:07
the day so these are what they tell us is it true is it not some of it is
23:13
all right and then of course coffee we know coffee's got caffeine in it it does give us energy there's a lot of work
23:19
research has been done around caffeine ingestion and Sport and exercise um uh
23:26
taking some caffeine before spr does give you a bit of a a boost but not
23:32
that much I mean it's a 0.0 whatever perc um so yeah and great to take before
23:38
you work out so if you're going to do a very heavy workout I don't know personally I wouldn't like to have a m
23:43
of coffee or cup of coffee probably might SI but for a lot of people that
23:49
probably W help because of caffeine boost for getting there um so here we go if we look at
23:56
protein supplements this is a bit what the research tells us but if you look at this there's some key
24:04
words in here all right and here we
24:10
go um okay here we go as long as the training stus was
24:18
sufficient okay so it's not just taking protein and off I go you've got to do
24:23
some sort of training there so the training stimulus has to be there you've got to ex exerise um and here was the
24:31
other one here protein exercise post exercise there's the word after exercise
24:38
um and then you
24:45
know so there we go prolonged intense exercise training
24:54
so You' got to use protein if you want to use supplement use it some exercise or during
25:00
exercise the thing about protein um and taking protein supplements particularly
25:06
when you've had a high intensity physical activity or long duration type of activity what happens to the body we
25:13
have what's called muscle protein breakdown and muscle protein
25:18
synthesis so when you're exercising you're exercising pretty hard we have what's called muscle protein break down
25:26
and that's when the muscles come like break down and then when you do your recovery then we have muscle protein
25:32
synthesis so that's the rebuilding of the muscles and that's when the protein and amino acids actually do their job so
25:41
post exercise your muscles are really really thirsty and hungry so that's when
25:47
they use Protein that's in there the Bron strain amino acids uh and that's where the magic happens if you want to
25:54
call it that it's not during the exercise where you bold muscle but the exercise is part of that whole process
26:01
so muscle protein breakdown muscle protein synthesis that should go hand in hand and it's during muscle protein
26:07
synthesis that you know the hypy happens and the strength brain start happening so you've
26:14
got to go from the catabolic state where you're actually breaking down to the anabolic state where you are actually
26:20
building again so if you go back and look at the slide where we had the ketones so that period that was a 4-day
26:27
period you're working really hard you don't have a lot of food you don't have a lot of sleep that period of time the
26:33
body's actually in a catabolic state so it's actually breaking down you're not getting the nutrients you need so post
26:41
activity like that you need to have a good recovery period where you can go into that anabolic State again so there
26:48
you need possibly some extra protein some extra carboh hydrain some electrolytes so you're turning that
26:56
catabolic State back into an anabolic and we do see that when we do those um
27:02
that monitoring after the that period then we do provide protein carvs uh and
27:09
electrolytes but we don't give those that were on those
27:15
exercises poaching powders we provide chocolate milk right and we provide we do give um
27:23
some electrolytes but you need that because you have uh a really um
27:29
catabolic State going on there and often there's not enough hydration going on as
27:34
well so you need a bit of electrolytes to get that balance going again so
27:40
protein powder chocolate mold um good feed pizzas you know probably not the
27:47
best but easy and convenient so you're getting a lot of your carbs back again so we want you to come back into that uh
27:54
anabolic state state again because military personnel you do an exercise you do a deployment
28:01
you've got to be ready to go again so if you're not recovered properly and you
28:07
got to go onto the job again you're going to get hurt okay so providing good recovery
28:15
programs good nutrition programs post exercise uh will help that recovery
28:21
program decreases the risk of reinjury or injury which is what we we don't
28:27
injury but we want we don't want you to get hurt okay uh then of course when you're
28:34
taking these supplements you've got to really be careful what are in
28:40
them because a lot of them particularly those supplements that are provided you know by
28:48
um Americans I say there um have got stuff in that probably aren't good for
28:56
us because the supplement industry in the US is not controlled okay so got to be really
29:03
careful so the big band supplements of course we know anabolic and other
29:09
steroids absolute no no but you'll be surprised how easily some people can get
29:15
hold of them then we've got DHEA dehydro EP
29:22
andron really long worthy um and that's also a type of hormone
29:29
okay and also your body produces the adrenal glands produce that so if you're taking
29:35
too much but what we call as exogenous usage from outside of the body your body's going to go well i' got enough of
29:42
this why do I need to make it myself and there's lots of side effects of that as well the nausea headaches um bad
29:49
skin uh diuretics diaretics are often taken to lose
29:55
weight and a lot of sports that you know where you weight is is pretty important like wrestling Boxing you got to go for
30:02
weight games they will take a couple of diuretics before they lose a lot of um body fluid and they make the way in and
30:09
they go back and then they drink a lot of water again it's kind of cheating a little bit and then of course blood
30:15
doping blood doping is not so much a supplement but blood doping is when you
30:20
know they take blood out of you uh and then I put it back into you so your red blood cell counts are actually high so
30:27
you got better use of oxygen okay the more red blood because what does what do red blood cells do they carry oxygen
30:34
around so if you got more o that cell have a lot more oxy
30:43
around um so yeah so what they do with blood doping they take blood out of you and they put your blood back in and it's
30:50
mainly endurance activities that do that um if a doing like adrenaline a good C
30:58
and then the other one that's becoming quite popular is known is human growth hormone
31:03
hga and human growth hormone um gives you strength muscle M that sort of stuff
31:10
what does growth warm do makes us grow okay but once again too much of
31:17
those things is just not good for you or as a matter of fact any of those it's not going to be good for us at
31:24
all um so if you decide or if you want to take
31:31
supplements uh we don't say don't take supplements we don't ban
31:38
supplements with the Defense Force we want to tell you that yes there are supplements out there but be aware of
31:45
what you're taking so it's about education okay they can be beneficial
31:51
and then you know that you should be guided by Your Health Care Professionals to ensure safety and efficacy and
31:59
remember supplements like I said earlier on what a supplement does to me is not
32:05
going to the same as what it's going to do to you it's different we all react differently we can't have a blanket
32:11
approach to supplements right and overuse or inappropriate use of supplements can
32:18
lead to adverse effects and nutrient imbalances so if you're taking all these supplements and stuff that your body
32:25
produces itself then there's going to be imbalances there's too much of this to little that then your body's going to go
32:30
hey what's going on here and you're going to crash or something's going to go wrong um so we do have uh military
32:41
dietitians we have military uh nutritionist at the moment and medical officers so you know talk to them and
32:49
they can give you advice based on your needs you know what do you need do you need to take supplements um look at your
32:56
dietry intake and also what are you doing what are your operational
33:02
demands once again uh go back to op sudden where we know we need to look at
33:08
the what's happening with the nutrition program there uh and we have given a uh
33:14
advice to people going on on Su what to do because there's a lack of good solid
33:20
fresh fruit and vegetables so maybe you know you need to take some
33:26
extra food or maybe some supplements aren't too bad in that case and of course don't forget the
33:33
safety you make sure that the supplements you're using are safe
33:39
they're effective and free from contaminants and ban
33:45
substances because a lot of substance sorry a lot of uh these supplements have
33:51
a lot of crap in them they honestly do uh often they fold with a lot of empty
33:58
kind of cars that sort of stuff um so watch out read the label and does the
34:05
supplement say what it does the other thing is to look if there's any scientific
34:10
evidence around the supplement has it been tested um a lot of them will be but
34:16
a lot of them won't be so do you need supplements or do we
34:25
as military personnel do we need supplements if you're having a good well balanced
34:34
diet you probably don't need to take supplements but then as before as we
34:40
looked at that's depending on what you're doing what your activities if you high intensity um long duration type of
34:48
physical activity you probably can look at supplementing okay but once again you
34:55
don't have to take supplements if you don't really need to you can do chocolate milk or just milk you know
35:02
fruit veggies that sort of stuff get your get your food and your your micronutrients your macronutrients from
35:09
good diet and it's not always easy in our meses to have good food sometimes it
35:16
can be a challenge but they're actually not too bad um so if you eat well from
35:21
the main food groups you know get the best possible spread of nutrients there's always salad you know
35:29
Iron zinc whatever um and lastly you know your money spent on supplements is
35:35
often better spend on healthy food but supplements are expensive they're not cheap they really
35:42
are expensive um we do know that with with our recruits picked up in wuru um
35:49
they're doing a lot of training there's a lot of um physical activity going on they
35:56
probably not sleeping as much as they can then we do have to look at you know the food in the Mist so we do like our
36:03
recruits to have snacks which would sometimes say well is that a supplement well not really a
36:10
supplement is something that's not food so we try and get them you know a bit of extra protein in the form of yogurt uh
36:17
we try and see that they get up and goes you know Peanut slabs or whatever um but
36:22
a supplement or a snack has to do what it's got to do and let's add some
36:29
nutrition um extra nutrition so the people or the recruits can
36:35
perform and also not have a lot of injuries so we want to decrease those
36:40
injury rates as well so good nutrition will decrease injury rates which is kind of what we struggle with a lot
36:50
um so just in conclusion here I can make you read it yourself
37:13
cool there's a lot of work that's been done in the space you know supplementation for military personnel
37:20
there's a lot of quite a bit of work goes around uh uh with the use of supplementation especially with Special
37:27
Forces Special Forces operation uh operators because they often uh operate
37:34
in extreme environments with little food uh and they also you know look at
37:40
um uh metabolic adaptations uh intermittent fasting uh
37:47
so how does that affect them will supplementation increase performance
37:52
will it make you better than the person who's trying to shoot you you know so we've got to keep say ah head of the
37:58
ball game it's exactly the same as in professional sport you know you always want the edge and I how do you keep that edge you
38:06
know do you use supplements do you not use supplements how do you use them how do you not use them um and supplements
38:13
are really interesting uh because if you find a supplement or sub supplement we know that protein powder can be
38:20
beneficial but with athletes particularly high performance athletes do tell then you know if you take one of
38:26
these it'll help they going take six you know same as with young soldiers you've
38:32
done you know a little bit of protein post excise will help can help
38:38
you they going take protein Powers before after doing whatever they just want a little bit more um and the
38:45
interesting thing as well about the statement here I take protein because I want to get Bak genetics plays a massive
38:53
role in you know hypertrophy and muscle size so you can drink as much protein as
38:59
you want to your mate might be nice and big and bulky but you're not going to look like him because your genetics is
39:04
not the same uh that's where you know it's individualized effect so often we have
39:10
youngsters who you know they just goofing the protein because they want to get big and all they're getting is is putting on the weight and they're
39:17
probably doing a bit of damage to the kidneys as well um but you know talk to the professionals people that can help
39:23
you there's some good um information on the Health Website as well around supplementation so have a look at that
39:29
and then you know a lot of the gym pdis are really good they've been talked as well and also the human form cell just
39:36
get hold of us and can help you out um and yep so it's up to the individual
39:43
you know do you want to use supplements or do you want to go down
39:48
the healthy eating pathway I still say the best way is good
39:55
healthy balanced diet but sometimes if we' seen here a little
40:01
bit of supplements can be beneficial if used correctly and make sure you know
40:07
what's in them and one doesn't fit
40:13
all good any questions yes you mention
40:19
Valentin and how it can affect your sleep um when I came back from America
40:25
last year P myself heaps of bottles of the
40:31
Melatonin CH yes and I started like eating two before
40:36
I went to bed this St out like five or
40:42
six I was like why is it not work anymore so if I stop taking them can I
40:47
reverse yes you can yes you
40:54
can so we just had a question about Mel and taking heaps of it um and then
41:02
person couldn't sleep but taking too much Melatonin is going to prevent you from sleeping melatonin you it's only a
41:08
certain amount you know that you need and once again your body does produce melatonin it helps us sleep if you're
41:15
taking too much it's oh geez there's too much going around now so no yeah was
41:21
just over time I felt like it wasn't working you need more and more and more and more
41:27
so you can reverse it but just go back to your normal habits I ran out anyway
41:33
last night was my last
41:38
one you're recy I'm recovery stuff anything
41:46
else great question um but things like magnesium I have heard and until today
41:52
believed that it would only support sleep if you had an existing
41:58
deficiency so I never really thought of it as supplementing as providing some more of that thing that would actually
42:05
you know be like work independently I suppose of
42:10
of what naturally produced so I was like oh well I don't have a deficiency so it's not going to support my sleep but I
42:17
know that a lot of people take magnesium for sleep yeah magnesium is is a popular supplement to take to Aid sleep because
42:25
magnesium does help us relax but once again if you're taking too much magnesium then it's going to C the
42:30
opposite and if you do have a deficiency in magnesium then probably yes it will
42:36
help but if you don't have any deficiencies then you know it's probably not going to do much
42:44
for you um a lot of a lot of supplements actually have Placebo
42:50
effects go to sleep so you do sleep um but yes I do know um magnesium is very
42:58
popular for assisting people sleep um you get deep sleep
43:03
magnesium uh that sort of stuff um and they make all sorts of claims it does help but once again look at the science
43:09
behind it you know is there good evidence that it works and where is the evidence come from you know are they
43:16
peer-reviewed articles or that does help um and once again if you look at the
43:23
research that spoke about um there's a lot of there's a lot of research about protein
43:29
because protein is very popular with Sport and it's also very popular in military so there's a lot of research
43:34
around protein it can be beneficial can is the word not that it is and you have
43:40
to take it um there's also quite a bit of research around creatin and they
43:45
what's creatine also can be beneficial but once again you're taking too much of
43:51
creatin kidney damage and then of course how much do it take and then as I said before a lot of people go oh creating
43:58
help creating works so I'll take double them am you know because I want to get bigger stronger faster that's that's
44:05
doesn't work um uh some of the supplements you'll see these research
44:12
and there's no conrete evidence that they work with that they don't work that's also who sponsors the research
44:18
you got to look at that because it might be the company that makes it that sponsor the research and they oh yeah
44:24
this is great you know but also read you know the conclusion is there enough
44:29
evidence that this does help and most of these supplements you'll find there's not much research about them it's all a
44:37
lot of it's hearsay and a lot of it's marketing and like magnesium for example
44:44
we know that magnesium does help us sleep so oh let's make magnesium and let's go magnesium makes you sleep and
44:52
oh yeah go by myself like and doesn't help maybe the first couple times you triy
44:59
because maybe that Placebo affected gas so yeah be it's just you know be
45:10
careful good food spinach some magnesi
45:16
Spanish and iron vegetables especially leafy
45:22
vegetables got a lot of good nutrients for for us you know um and Le good leafy
45:28
vegetables are really good for uh men particularly for prostate health so good leafy vegetables they
45:34
really help for that um salmon this fish oil and
45:39
salmon Amigo threes they're all in there uh but it's expensive you oh it's too expensive I'll
45:46
just pop a p you but that's not really the way but yeah so look at good food I
45:53
mean vitamin C is is another popular one that a lot of people take I take vitamin C every day
45:59
because I believe it help but um vitamin C trying to get a lot more vitamin C
46:04
from you know food you know C Food oranges they lots of vitamin C in
46:12
there yeah Zink meat great
46:17
meat good thinking yeah so
46:30
and then a lot of the other thing is a lot of people ask about weight loss
46:39
supplement but and um what they are are they definitely are and they thero
46:45
genetics or whatever they call it so they're supposed to boost your metabolism um I I've never taken any of
46:53
those and I some people swear by them uh but I'm not quite sure uh the best thing
47:00
for weight loss is diet and exercise and the most important one is Diet more than
47:07
exercise you know but calorie intake calorie expenditure and you know that's we all
47:13
know these things you know we all know but we always want the Quick Fix that's human nature we want the Quick Fix and
47:20
then we grab the supplements yeah oh this is going to make be skinny or this is going to make
47:25
be bulky or this is going to make be strong but they don't
47:33
always a question yes if if you've got
47:38
if you're on prescribed medication yes you've got all these different
47:44
supplements that do this that everything else should you check with your health
47:50
professional prior to deciding to go take magnesium or this protein power or
47:57
what can they sort of contradict each other yes yes so the question we had is
48:04
if you're on medication and you want to take supplements should you go to your health care professional before and the
48:11
answer to that is yes because some of the medication you uh take might also
48:18
have adverse effects on the medication you take yeah so a really good idea to
48:23
check with your Healthy professional before you decide to C
48:28
supplements because some of your medication might control um potassium levels or calcium levels all that sort
48:35
of stuff so if you're going to take supplements and you want to increase calcium but you've got medication that's
48:41
you know controlling calcium and it's going to be whoops no that's not that's not good I know potassium is one that
48:50
um cardiovascular patients normally take and then you know you don't want to take supplements that increase po rates or
48:57
sodium rates or whatever
49:02
yeah we have a question from the online audience uh what about supplements for enhancing
49:09
circulation for enhancing circulation
49:15
o supplements for enlar enhancing circulation they some out there that
49:22
supposedly will help with heart health but once again look at the research
49:27
that's been done uh um so probably circulation I don't know I'm not quite
49:34
familiar with that one to be honest uh probably looking at something like
49:39
cholesterol reducing agents that uh will help increase C and reduce cholesterol
49:46
um but once again if you're looking at circulation diet and exercise is probably the way to go
49:54
um you know what's the supplement that you're looking at and what is a claim to
50:00
do so I'm not familiar with that very good website that people could go to to
50:07
check when you're saying check the research yeah if you go to the the defense Health there some links in there
50:13
I have a look on those yeah yeah yeah so I know there's um yeah I know stattin to help reduce
50:24
cholesterol um and if you yeah you want to increase your circulation um big thing about
50:30
circulation uh if you got problems is you know what is the problem and why do
50:36
you want to increase circulation because circulation is often narrowing of arteries high cholesterol levels
50:44
um I'm not quite sure we more info around that one I know they are I know
50:50
they are but I wouldn't be quite sure about that one so yeah
50:57
I probably go for exercise rather than the supplement that's definitely going to increase your out there
51:23
yeah thank very much thank you very much you
Performance Supplements for Military Personnel
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Performance Supplements for Military Personnelpdf - 1.6 MBPerformance Supplements for Military Personnel