The Food and Drug Administration has sent out a warning to consumers asking them not to buy food items that have the supplement ingredient DMAA.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to all consumers Friday, requesting them to refrain from purchasing food supplements that contain ingredient dimethylamylamine, better known as DMAA.
The strongly-worded warning stated the ingredient was not only illegal but dangerous for consumption too. Experts say theFDA warning is the first of its kind cautioning consumers about DMAA.
The ingredient is generally found in supplements that claim to help in weight loss and muscle building. According to the FDA warning, DMAA is known to cause irregular heartbeat, blood pressure, heart attacks and may even cause shortness of breath.
Last year, The Food and Drug Administration sent letters to 11 companies asking them to stop the manufacture and sales of supplements containing DMAA. All companies but one complied with the letter, reported the FDA.
Fox News quoted Dr. Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a general internist at Cambridge Health Alliance in Boston, as saying while FDA questioned in its previous letters whether the usage of DMAA was legal; it made it "crystal clear" in its new warning that the usage of DMAA was illegal.
USPlabs was the company that didn't pay heed to FDA's letter. The company is known for manufacturing and selling supplements Jack3D and Oxy Elite Pro, both of which contain DMAA. Instead, USPlabs submitted research documents to the FDA showing that their supplements are safe to consume. However, in the new warning, FDA noted that those research documents were not enough to prove the safety of the ingredient.
Last year, after the death of two of its soldiers, the U.S. military removed all supplements containing DMAA from the base shelves and are still investigating whether it was the cause of the soldiers' deaths.
Despite, these previous occurrences, this is the first time FDA has issued an official warning against usage of this ingredient.
