Why do so many athletes turn to extreme and unproven remedies?

Extreme and unproven remedies often find favor among athletes, but why? Let's delve into the psychological, physiological, and sociological factors that drive these high-performers towards such unconventional paths in their quest for excellence and recovery.

Athletes are prime targets for marketing rhetoric used in the sale of health and fitness products, many of which fall outside the medical and scientific mainstream

50-80% of athletes use alternative therapies compared to 40-40% of the general public

• Athletes, who are generally at an increased need for effective recovery, are more likely to invest in unproven, potentially harmful interventions that are likely to be partially or entirely dependent on a placebo effect

Advocating for the use of ‘placebo products’ requires medics and scientists to compromise their intellectual integrity

It is impossible and unrealistic for high-profile athletes to condone placebo-based interventions only for minor ailments and sports performance

• Unfortunately, the widespread use of CAM in health and sport could have profound adverse implications for clinical practice
• There must be greater efforts to integrate critical thinking into grassroots education, so that athletes, and the population at large, are able to better distinguish science from pseudoscience and information from misinformation

Reasons why athletes are drawn to alternative therapies

All humans are conditioned for the ‘quick fix’

• Proponents of alternative therapies exploit this heuristic by offering grand rewards for comparatively little investment
• Athletes are particularly susceptible because elite sport encourages a ‘win at all costs’ mentality
• When the difference between gold and silver can be infinitesimally small, it is perhaps understandable that athletes will pursue any potential advantage they can
• Placebo products can have powerful psychobiological effects
• Another explanation for the popularity of CAM is a dissatisfaction in or distrust of conventional science and/or a rejection of societal norms

Athlete sponsorship

For winning an Olympic gold medal, US athletes receive only $37,500 in prize money while British athletes receive no prize money at all

• Accordingly, many athletes choose to strike sponsorship deals with marketing agencies, often leveraging their large social media followings into an advertising base.

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