A randomized experiment to examine unintended consequences of dietary supplement use among daily smokers: taking supplements reduces self-regulation of smoking.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Ascorbic Acid.

The researchers examined whether smokers' use of dietary supplements (e.g. vitamin C, multi-vitamins) induces illusory invulnerability that in turn disinhibits smoking.

Such supplement use may be perceived as conferring health credentials.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

A single-factor (credentials: with or without) between-subjects design was employed.

Smokers were assigned randomly to take either a known placebo pill or a dietary supplement (in fact, the same placebo) in an ostensible health-food test.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Ascorbic Acid study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Ascorbic Acid could be set against what happens without it.

Laboratory at Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan.

In Study 1, participants reported their perceived invulnerability following the manipulation.

In study 2, pre- and post-test measures of invulnerability were administered, and attitudes towards dietary supplements were assessed prior to the manipulation.

In both studies, the dependent measure was the number of cigarettes smoked during completion of an unrelated survey.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Ascorbic Acid, Dietary Supplements, Health Behavior, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Personality Tests, Risk-Taking and Smoking.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Ascorbic Acid.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2011 (Addiction (Abingdon, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.