Industry Secrets: How Banned Substances Show Up On Our Retail Shelves

We Tested 700+ Supplements And Found These Trends — Part 4

For this article, we’ll be referencing data from our tests on pre-workout mixes, posted on the Labdoor site.

Stimulants give users increased energy, strength, and euphoria, but at heavy price. Many people have died from accidentally overdosing, and long-term use causes permanent brain damage. Even the short-term side effects sound terrible: addiction, withdrawal, exhaustion, depression, and mental impairment. With that in mind, most people wouldn’t want to use the stuff.

But for some, they never knew they were taking stimulants in the first place. Over the past five years, the FDA has identified at least 168 over-the-counter products containing unlisted stimulants. Some of these banned substances are ephedrine, synephrine, BMPEA, and methylhexaneamine (DMAA), and can masquerade under names like Acacia rigidula. These compounds affect the body in a similar way to Adderall® or cocaine, but can be found on the shelves of your local supermarket or pharmacy.

If these drugs are banned, many people would like to know why they’re still sold so freely. Unfortunately, the FDA has a limited ability to regulate the supplement industry. Usually, the FDA will hear of a dangerous product after a consumer suffers a life-threatening health event, and they’ll send a warning letter to the supplement company, giving them about 2 weeks to stop distribution of the product before possible enforcement. Most of the time though, dishonest companies find loopholes to keep coming back like rebranding or moving their production plant — some of these manufacturers don’t even bother to rebrand before they reappear on the shelves a year later, and rarely is the FDA able to stop a pill before it goes on sale.

Why is it happening? Simply put, these drugs are cheap and have a powerful effect. Take sibutramine for example. It was a prescription treatment for exogenous obesity until 2010, when it was shown to cause fatal heart damage and strokes. The drug was pulled from the market by Abbott Pharma, but small unregulated labs started synthesizing it and putting sibutramine in their OTC diet pills. These days, the FDA catches diet pills with sibutramine several times a month, reporting one as recently as this week.

Pre-workout mixes are another supplement category that dishonest manufacturers are targeting. We’ve heard reports of contamination with banned substances, but only found one in our own tests of 48 different brands. Train Critical FX contained 50 mg of BMPEA, an amphetamine-like chemical with serious heart, addiction, and mental health effects. Of course, the BMPEA wasn’t mentioned on the label.

Banned substances aren’t the only potentially dangerous stimulant in pre-workout mixes. Caffeine is commonly added at dosages so high they could cause heart palpitations and muscle tremors just in one serving, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the product labels. From tests of 41 pre-workout products, we found that 5 of them had more than 300 mg per serving (~3 cups of coffee), 3 of which didn’t report caffeine content at all (Nutrex Research Hemo Rage, Muscle Meds No Bull, Human Evolution Supplements Override). Even if they did report it, label claims were off by as much as 47%.

For the time being, we’d advise that consumers avoid the diet pill market altogether. There are plenty of safe, proven ways to slim, without taking risks on unknown substances. Consumers should also check our free reports before buying pre-workouts and other energy-enhancing supplements, and pay attention to your body when you take a new product for the first time.