Amphetamines Are Hiding in Your Supplements | Hacker News Reader

Amphetamines Are Hiding in Your Supplements

thedailybeast.com

99 pointsHooke73 comments

I love the supplement industry! This sort of stuff happens all the time, especially around weightlifting supplements. If you're not into picking things up and putting them down, there's 3 ways you can ingest things that aren't food to help you out:

- Nutritional supplements. This means things like protein powder, vitamins, fish oil, or creatine powder. All legal and mostly derived from food (or at least present in stuff you'd normally eat).

- Anabolic steroids. Highly effective, highly risky, highly illegal.

- Pre-worked supplements. This is where everybody walks the line. For some reason, these don't get much attention from the FDA or anybody else, so there's a lot of incentive to get creative with your ingredients. The idea here is that you take these to give you a bunch of energy before you lift, which can be especially important if you're trying to lose weight while lifting.

The basic formula for pre-workouts is sugar and caffeine, which is pretty effective. Unfortunately, that's also easy to replicate with a cup of a coffee and a banana. If you throw amphetamines (or similar) in there, they become much more effective. If you read places like bodybuilding.com or the body-building-oriented subreddits, you'll see people talk about the "old" versions of a bunch of supplements. The reason the "old" versions were banned is universally because they contained some sort of illegal substance that your mom would probably refer to incorrectly as "meth".

Yep, Jack3d was pretty famous for that. The banned ingredient was DMAA, by the way. http://www.fda.gov/Food/DietarySupplements/QADietarySuppleme...

wistful sigh DMAA was great. The reason it was popular was that it stimulated without the jitters.

There seems to be a pattern that if a supplement becomes too effective, drug companies lobby politicians to get it classified as a pharmaceutical so they can make money selling it.

>> - Anabolic steroids. Highly effective, highly risky, highly illegal.

Highly risky? Highly illegal? Not sure if the first is backed up by the science. And enough people take them that I'm not sure highly illegal is true either.

It's one of those things where the "highly risky" is more or less true, but mainly because it is illegal, and not the opposite. Make any medication illegal long enough and people will do stupid shit with it because they can't go to the doctor and ask them how to use it safely. Then they'll injure themselves, reinforcing the illegality of the medication, and keep the circle going.

The documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" by Chris Bell is an excellent starting point to learn about the supplement/anabolics industry.

Not highly risky but they do provide some potential risks to natural hormone production, blood pressure, etc. Orals have liver risks. Most of these risks can be mitigated by proper post cycle therapy. The big side effects you hear about are usually at super high dosages that people like professional bodybuilders take. To put that in perspective I've seen pros quoted at taking 1g a week. A normal TRT dosage might be 100mg to 200mg per week. A normal beginner cycle dosage might be 200mg twice a week (400mg). On top of that pros are using a cocktail of insulin, growth hormone, multiple types of anabolic steroids, amphetamines, thing like clenbuterol and DNP.

Steroids them self are not nearly as dangerous as the media makes you believe. This is coming from someone who has clinically diagnosed hypogonadism (Low T) and has used Test. It's made a significant difference in my life.

Disclaimer: I've never taken them, so what I'm saying is based on what I've read, but it seems to me that it's about as risky as cannabis or alcohol.

If you're going to do what pro-bodybuilders do and inject enormous quantites (as well as insulin, HGH etc) then you probably deserve what you get.

Yeah, wrong on both counts (and the highly effective is true - big if - if used correctly)

Of course, if you're going to get them from a shady place and have no idea on how to use them, it might be dangerous and/or have bad side effects)

You mean pre-workout supplements, right?

there was also the pro-h ormone supplements, which used some form of testosterone precursor that wasn't illegal yet, or something like that.

-pedantic mode-

BMPEA is by definition not an amphetamine. Amphetamine is a contraction of Alpha-Methyl PHenEThylAMINE, BMPEA is beta-methyl.

But I guess saying 'Amphetamine' will get you more clicks than 'Phenethylamine', even though Phenethylamine is the wider class....

-- grouch mode on --

The alpha vs beta is not really the heart of the story now, is it? So why tar-n-feather a very valid story with the 'clickbait' brush?

It is a story worth reading. And asking hard questions of the FDA.

My theory is rooted in 'follow the money'. No, not in that way! Big pharma gets held to a rigorous standard because a bigger chunk of change is at stake, for multiple players. The herbal-shmurble con-artists are simply too small a fish to matter in the multi-billion dollar game that is drug approval.

That's why I prefaced it with a warning that pedantry lay ahead!

I don't think it's clickbait, I think it's interesting for a wide variety of reasons - the unregulated supplements industry, novel stimulants (or potential stimulants, IIRC beta-methyl PEAs have not been that active compared to alpha-methyl ones) etc etc

>> The herbal-shmurble con-artists are simply too small a fish to matter in the multi-billion dollar game that is drug approval.

By selling as a dietary supplement rather than as a medicine they side-step pretty much everything. Supplements are a multi-billion dollar industry themselves. Every so often a politician will mention regulating them like medicine, usually in terms of making them prove their tenuous health claims, but it turns out there's a lot of money for lobbyists in their war-chest.

Last time I remember hearing about this was in Germany a few years back I think...

The key point is that amphetamines are a subset of of PEAs, and that BMPEA does not belong in that subset because it is a positional isomer of amphetamine- the methyl group is in the wrong place (yes, positions do matter in chemistry).

Pfft, this is nothing compared to the shit bodybuilders would take. See: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/16/ampheta...

Every year some manufacturer adds something "special" just to gain customers. It's scary because this stuff causes neurodegeneration and excess oxidation of dopamine to DOPAC , which increases axidative stress on your mitochondria that could drastically increase your odds of having Parkinsons latter in life, and this isnt even mentioning the toll this stuff takes on your cardiovascular system along with having kidneys that feel like beans due to peripheral effects. I could go on; but, why bother?

Do you have any references on the effects of these substituted phenethylamine? I'm not surprised that they could be quite damaging, just interested in learning more.

Preventing this sort of thing is the FDA's job: testing food, drugs and supplements for undisclosed adulterants, and bringing enforcement action against companies that produce adulterated products. I want to be able to trust that supplements will contain exactly what the package says they contain. Unfortunately, they aren't doing this job very well.

In the past, proposals to get the FDA to do more have gotten mixed up with proposals to have them regulate claims about efficacy and possibly ban substances, which are things people don't want them to do.

Many of those just aren't allowed in France. But then again we're missing the ability to access a full range of products. However, since a few months, I've noticed a few chemistries who have some supplements on display.

On a culture note, fitness clubs aren't as accepted as in anglosaxon culture (I've especially lived in Syndey, which is has a beach culture). If you go, you're categorized as a superficial person, maybe with self-confidence issues, who doesn't do real sports. Ironically I don't mind communicating that I'm gay, but I rarely mention the fitness club.

So no surprise the legislation on complements is much narrower here.

Dietary supplements are regulated as food, not medicine in the US. This means the FDA is far more restricted in what it can do to regulate them.

>"Dietary supplements are regulated as food, not medicine in the US."

#Edit: One of the other posters mentioned that this isn't exactly a controlled substance. So points below may not apply anymore.

That's problem number one. Problem number 2 is why these companies are allowed to make regulated substances, and bypass the "prescription" mechanics set in place for regulated substances.

They're not restricted. And even if they are in some weird legal grey area, they must just contact the DEA as it is a plain "drug" issue.

Isn't this more of a DEA issue than an FDA issue?

Selling a controlled substance in large quantities is a felony. Even if you pretend it's not. You can't get away with calling your product a "natural extract of the coca plant", for instance.

Selling an analog of a drug isn't legal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analog_Act

ß-methylphenylethylamine isn't actually a controlled substance, though, or at least it occupies the same grey area as many other so-called "research chemicals." It's an open question whether a substance like this falls under the Analog Act or not (which bans chemicals which are "substantially similar" to scheduled illicit drugs, but the language is loose enough that chemists can substitute a molecule or two and argue that it doesn't qualify). I find the whole issue fascinating - it's almost like a new era of alchemy.

The analog act is a difficult act to prosecute under, which is why you see analogs often banned directly rather than prosecuted under it. BMPEA isn't an analog of a banned substance, either, at least it's far more removed than other chemicals[0]. Calling it an "amphetamine" is a bit of a scare tactic, although it certainly isn't a nice chemical and it should've been marketed exactly as it was, not claimed to be a "herbal extract". Frankly, they should be able to nail them under that marketing premise instead.

EDIT: [0] Actually, I take that back. It's far closer to amphetamine than DMAA was, which makes this rather interesting actually.

"Herbal" is a complete misdirection word that tells you nothing about the toxicity of a substance.

Oh, neat, I was looking for a way to get amphetamines without a prescription.

JFK took a buttload* of amphetamines, but you wouldn't know it from his speech patterns.

* pretty sure that is the technical term.

> but you wouldn't know it from his speech patterns.

He was truly a man of his err-ahh, err-ahh.

Exactly. Never talked fast either.

It is, and spelled correctly since he was in the US at the time. Had he been anywhere else, it would have been a "butteload" or a "buttloade" (I can't remember which, this is a friend's joke).

Beer used to be sold in butts. The butt of beer was equal to half a tun, two hogsheads, three barrels or 108 imperial gallons (491.0 l).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_brewery_cask_units

The drinking water on board sailing ships was stored in a butt, which had been scuttled (holed) to withdraw the water. Sailors would gather around the scuttled butt to take their water ration, and exchange rumors and gossip, which was shortened to "scuttlebutt".

This has a direct analog in the office water cooler.

It is therefore also entirely appropriate to measure information of dubious provenance in terms of buttloads. That is easily extended to time spent on the Internet, for obvious reasons.

Assloads, on the other hand, refer to the use of donkeys as a pack animal, and would be more appropriate for non-pourable items, which could be balanced across the backside of the animal, or strapped on (to a pack saddle).

I am, sadly, unaware of the history behind the fuckton, or its metric equivalent.

"The important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time."

...and a 'water butt' is probably how rural folk in England best know that term. A 'water butt' filled up with rainwater from the gutters was what you used to water the garden with, drown excess kittens in and so on.

Oddly, growing up with 'everyone' having a 'water butt', a 'butt' was a big container full of water, only with the internet and the consequent invasion of Americanisms have I learned a 'butt' is a 'bottom'.

Hey, all of those are in GNU units except the tun and the butt! (But they have winetun and winebutt, which are clearly different from the beer units.)

What about a methbutt?

You learn something new every day! Thanks for that.

So did Hitler, along with frequent opioid shots, which had only exacerbated his bipolar disorder.

JFK also had addison's and hypothyroidism, and thus naturally low energy.

Is this a "submarine PR" piece for those supplements?

Let's see: http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/russell-saunders.h... Russell Saunders is the pseudonym for a pediatrician in New England. Other articles with this name seem to be political and pop-culture references. I would guess that this is legitimately anti-meth.

If so, they're doing it wrong.

I don't agree. I was very inspired.

Well, good. At least there's something in those supplements that actually works.

This doesn't surprise me much.

Anecdotally, someone I know in the military was deployed overseas somewhere in the 2006-2010 timespan. When I asked what he would appreciate the most, he gave the name of a "weight loss" pill. (I can't remember the name for the life of me.) When I asked why, he said that it keeps everyone alert way better than caffeine.

Also anecdotally, but some of them also will cause a false-positive (or maybe not a true false-positive...but a false-positive in the sense that the soldier didn't intentionally ingest a banned substance) for amphetamines from urinalysis, which is a nightmare for the soldier and their leadership. Jack3d and C4 come to mind right off the bat, and those have since been removed from the GNC on post - or they removed whatever blend that had the compounds causing the false-positive. Every couple of months something new comes on the market that causes the same damn thing and the on-post GNC goes back under the microscope.

It's one of those problems where you know that soldiers are going to buy this stuff no matter how many times you tell them "don't, you don't know what's in it", and they'll get it either online or off-post from places where the command has less influence on what's available.

DMAA, specifically known as Methylhexanamine. Works really well as a stimulant. Banned in most sports.

In that timescale, it could likely be good old ephedrine. The Ephedrine-Caffeine-Aspirin stack is popular and effective (and banned, like DMAA).

As long as Gnar Pump is OK, I'm good:

http://brosupps.com/products/gnar-pump-pre-workout-gain-bomb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHUSBQhxeCU

I really miss jack3d's DMAA recipe. QQ

Not to be cynical, but isn't this why people take these supplements?

Ditto caffeine. Seems to have slipped into a lot of beverages and OTC supplements. Some people are sensitive to it or their religion disdains it.

"Supplement" is a cop-out word. It means pretty much nothing

Cue the "supplements don't work" "articles" or even this one.

Yes, if you go to a fitness store, I'd say around 80% of that is at best harmless (some may have questionable substances - especially those "pre-workout" ones, and the "Prohormone" ones, which are usually worse than taking the actual steroids)

Pre-workout = caffeine + marketing

Often also niacin for that fetching flush and tingling sensation.

Read up on Jack3D and some of the substances it contains

does that mean that these weight loss suplements actually work?

If you really want to lose weight, there are lots of things that work. As a class, they're called anorectics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorectic).

Unsurprisingly, they're almost universally prescription drugs, because bypassing your metabolism, by definition, has side-effects(!), and people tend to abuse these drugs—hitting all the side-effects and then some—if they're not being carefully prescribed.

There are a few exceptions, though. Pseudoephedrine (the OTC decongestant) is an anorectic. For that matter, ephedrine (that stuff locked behind the counter in the nutrition shops) is a better one. You can't legally put either of them in a "supplement", but you can just buy them on their own, just like you can buy plain TSP washing powder.

---

ETA: as a fun aside, there are non-anorectic weight-loss drugs that work (i.e. drugs that make you lose weight through some other mechanism than making you less hungry.) They tend to be even worse, though. DNP[1], for example: "slips the chain" on your mitochondria so they spin through the Krebs cycle uselessly without any work products. The result? Your body (including your brain!) gets as hot as an overclocked CPU.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol

Almost two weeks later, the news have this gruesome report of a young woman's death by dinitrophenol: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/21/woman-dies-af...

""""

She said her daughter began feeling unwell at about lunchtime on 12 April and drove herself to Royal Shrewsbury hospital, where she explained to doctors what she had taken. She said there was “no great panic” because “[Eloise] was still completely lucid and with it. At this point she still seemed to be OK.”

That changed when doctors carried out a toxicology report that revealed “how dire her situation was”.

“The drug was in her system, there was no antidote, two tablets was a lethal dose and she had taken eight,” Fiona Parry said in a tribute posted online. “As Eloise deteriorated, the staff in A&E did all they could to stabilise her.

“As the drug kicked in and started to make her metabolism soar, they attempted to cool her down, but they were fighting an uphill battle. She was literally burning up from within. When she stopped breathing, they put her on a ventilator and carried on fighting to save her.

“When her hearted stopped they couldn’t revive her. She had crashed. She had taken so much DNP that the consequences were inevitable. They never stood a chance of saving her. She burned and crashed.”

"""

> but you can just buy them on their own, just like you can buy plain TSP washing powder.

Are you referring to this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisodium_phosphate#Exercise_pe...

Hah! I wasn't (and wasn't aware anyone would be crazy enough to put TSP inside their body); I was just making the direct parallel: both ephedrine and TSP exist in an odd regulatory state where, although they can't be used as an ingredient in a compound product, they can be purchased OTC in a pure form and then "compounded" into those same products by the end-user. Just like you can mix some TSP into your regular laundry detergent, you can mix some ephedrine into your regular diet shakes or what-have-you.

So you didn't read the part where it talks about the (legal) use of TSP as a food additive, then?

Trisodium phosphate is commonly found in many brands of children's cereal, toothpaste, processed cheese, meats, and canned soups.

That is tagged as an "unreliable quote" by Wikipedia, but the fact that TSP has an E-number in the EU must mean it is (was?) used in food products.

I suspect there is a large scale factor difference in dose between whatever common food use there is (preservative or whatever) and the body hacking use.

That's funny, at first that's what I thought you meant, but then when I read the Wikipedia article (and also discovered for the first time the internal use case), I convinced myself that I had misunderstood.

So you are actually referring to the general banning of phosphates on ecological grounds, but TSP's exception as a stand-alone product.

Possibly. At least, they have a far higher chance of working than other pointless placebos, however being an un-researched analog of a strong stimulant it comes with some serious risks, and not very nice side-effects.

Yeah the big thing here is it's going to be super unpleasant to use at best and dangerous at worst.

That said, people use and have used amphetamines (legally and illegally) for nearly a century. It used to be pretty commonplace to take speed during long study sessions. And it's not a ton different now with ritalin and adderall, although they at least need a prescription now.

All in all, I have been an active user of supplements for most of my life and news in the last few years has caused me to seriously reconsider this. I haven't touched any of these things in months now. It's just not worth it.

I'm surprised most people look to lose weight with supplements and medicines when the only thing you need to do is to change your diet. I guess they don't contemplate changing their diet. If people only followed a healthier diet, 99% of the problems people suffer would disappear. And it's a shame. All this industry is corrupt, pushing lies to the consumer. I'm not surprised.

If changing your diet was that simple, there would be far fewer problems with obesity. It's not that simple for most people. Habits and compulsive behaviours can be extremely hard to change.

There are few things that are harder to change on a long term basis than human behaviour.

If you purchase a container of gotu kola from your local holistic market, you’re buying almost entirely on faith.

How so? I get my gotu kola in dried leaf form, perfect for teas. 100% verifiably pure.

This is why WADA signatories (high level cyclists, anyone on an Olympic path) strictly avoid supplements even if they are technically legal. Pissing hot can get you a 2 year ban.

I can assure you none of them avoid supplements.

Now they even dope their bikes...

http://www.theweek.co.uk/sport/cycling/14195/cycling-hit-cla...

I know a lot of pro and olympic level cyclists. They do.

Requiem for a Dream

edit come on downvoters, the similarities between this story and the tooth grinding inducing diet pills in the rather magnificent movie are obvious

Is it news that the FDA doesn't do its job? It will never do this job. Better to scrap it and let the internet do it.

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