Chris D. Meletis, N.D., and Nieske Zabriskie, N.D.
Muscle-building research is useful for athletes and bodybuilders as well as for elderly patients and those with muscle-wasting conditions. Research shows that a healthy diet, resistance exercise, and nutritional supplements are beneficial for improving body composition and the body of research on nutritional supplements for athletes is growing.
However, supplementation will not improve muscle size and strength without resistance training, such as weight lifting or weight-bearing aerobics. The sports-nutrition and weight-loss industries in the United States comprise a growing market and there were reports of $14.3 billion dollars in sales of such products in 2004. 1 In addition, according to the Nutrition Business Journal, this product market increased sales by 14 percent to reach $15.6 billion in 2005 and is estimated to grow at a rate of approximately 5–7 percent per year for the next 8 years. 2
