Find in Library

Training civilians to be soldiers is a challenging task often resulting in musculoskeletal injuries, especially bone stress injuries. This study evaluated bone health biomarkers (P1NP/CTX) and whey protein or carbohydrate supplementations before and after Army initial entry training (IET). Ninety male IET soldiers participated in this placebo-controlled, double-blind study assessing carbohydrate and whey protein supplementations. Age and fat mass predicted bone formation when controlling for ethnicity, explaining 44% (<i>p</i> < 0.01) of bone formation variations. Age was the only significant predictor of bone resorption (<i>p</i> = 0.02) when controlling for run, fat, and ethnicity, and these factors together explained 32% of the variance in bone resorption during week one (<i>p</i> < 0.01). Vitamin D increased across training (<i>p</i> < 0.01). There was no group by time interaction for supplementation and bone formation (<i>p</i> = 0.75), resorption (<i>p</i> = 0.73), Vitamin D (<i>p</i> = 0.36), or calcium (<i>p</i> = 0.64), indicating no influence of a supplementation on bone biomarkers across training. Age, fitness, fat mass, and ethnicity were important predictors of bone metabolism. The bone resorption/formation ratio suggests IET soldiers are at risk of stress injuries. Male IET soldiers are mildly to moderately deficient in vitamin D and slightly deficient in calcium throughout training. Whey protein or carbohydrate supplementations did not affect the markers of bone metabolism.