The Association between the Use of Dietary Supplement and Psychological Status of Cancer Survivors in Korea: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Dietary supplements (DS) use is known to be common among cancer survivors. However, detailed information on the factors influencing DS use seems insufficient, including cancer-related and psychological factors.Methods: Study subjects were 1,852 Korean adult cancer survivors recruited from cancer survivor clinic of two university-affiliated hospitals. Data were collected retrospectively through review of medical records and self-administered questionnaires. Psychological factors were assessed using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory-Short Form. Factors associated the DS use were evaluated by multiple logistic regression analysis after adjusting for covariates.Results: The prevalence of long-term DS use was 15.7% in overall (17.5% in female and 11.6% in male). Female survivors were 3.14 times (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.89–5.22) more likely to use DS than male. In male cancer survivors, ever-smoking and previous radiotherapy were positively associated with DS use. In females, breast cancer survivors were 0.32 times less likely to use DS compared with stomach cancer survivors, and survivors with family history of cancer were 1.39 times more likely to use DS than those without. After adjusting for sociodemographic, clinical, and lifestyle factors, survivors with anxiety (HADS ≥8) used DS 1.38 times (95% CI, 1.01–1.91) more frequently, compared with those without anxiety.Conclusion: Diverse factors such as female sex, cancer treatment modality, smoking history, family history and anxiety status were associated with DS use in Korean cancer survivors. Targeted strategies with consideration of these factors are needed for counseling DS use for cancer survivors.

Supplement use and its impact on daily life of cancer patients: a cross-sectional study

“…In addition, the multiple linear regression model showed that anxiety was not associated with higher use of supplements. Although this nding was incompatible with the ndings of another study in Korea [13], there could be several reasons to explain it, including the low sample size, potential confounding, or an intermediate effect related to other factors included in the model. In addition, excessive daytime sleepiness was associated with supplement use in the bivariate analysis, but not the multivariate regression; similar explanations could be given.…”

“…Socio-demographic and cancer-related characteristics study suggested that supplement users were predominately female, like many other studies [13,21]. Unlike previous studies, in this study, age, income, cancer type, and cancer treatment modality were not associated with the use of supplements among cancer patients [4,5,13].…”

“…Cancer patients frequently turn to dietary supplements to reduce anxiety, alleviate sleep disorders, and enhance their overall quality of life [10,11]. The existing studies examining the relationship between supplement intake and anxiety, which is present in 10% of cancer patients [12], reveal con icting outcomes [13,14]. Concurrently, when studying the connection between supplement intake and quality of life, con icting results were also identi ed [5,15].…”

Differences in the Perception of Dietary Supplements between Dietary Supplement/Medicine Users and Non-Users

“…At this time, there are many studies that examine the effect of dietary supplements, such as probiotics [ 46 , 47 ], B-complex multivitamin/mineral supplementation [ 48 ], magnesium [ 49 ], and omega-3 [ 50 ] for anxiety, but there are few reports on whether anxiety towards health encourages people to use dietary supplements. Anxiety was associated with dietary supplement/complementary alternative medicine in cancer survivors [ 51 ], women with early breast cancer [ 52 ], and patients with liver disease [ 53 ] but not healthy subjects.…”

Factors Associated with Long-Term Dietary Supplement Use among Korean Breast Cancer Survivors: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…A separate analysis of breast cancer survivors was not performed in this Korean study, probably because of the small number of breast cancer survivors (59 women) included in the study [ 14 ]. In our previous study, being female was related to a higher probability of long-term DS use, and among female cancer survivors, breast cancer survivors were less likely to take DS compared with female survivors of other cancers such as stomach cancer [ 15 ]. This finding pointed to the necessity of further examining the patterns and related factors of DS use by breast cancer survivors.…”