Indeed, what distinguishes DMAA from most supplements is that there is a clinical and pharmacological safety database.
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The FDA has apparently warned companies known to be using DMAA in dietary supplements that such use is illegal.
It was revealed during Miss Squires' inquest that a scoop of a product containing DMAA was in her water bottle.
The FDA has received 86 reports thus far associated with weight loss and muscle building supplements containing DMAA since 2007.
Companies have claimed that DMAA is a natural dietary ingredient from the geranium plant, previously used in tea infusions and from other studies using geranium oil.
The bottom line is that people often get addicted to caffeine which is added to the DMAA, and often develop headaches if they stop using it abruptly.
These are voluntary reports from health care providers and consumers linking DMAA use to seizures, arrhythmias, heart attacks, strokes, panic attacks, and deaths, along with exacerbation of psychiatric conditions.
But while there are many troubling aspects to the way dietary supplements are regulated in the US, there are equally troubling aspects to DMAA becoming the poster supplement for regulatory negligence.
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Moreover, given its recent popularity, and given that DMAA was used in a nasal decongestant for over 40 years, one can reasonably and conservatively infer hundreds of millions of doses taken since the 1940s.
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This may well have been what happened in three cases of non-fatal cerebral hemorrhage in New Zealand, who either consumed DMAA in products sold as party pills or in a powder mixed in a drink.
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Even when DMAA and caffeine were combined in one study and the subjects went on a 10km run, the researchers found no increase in heart rate during the run, compared to the runners given a placebo.
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Interestingly, most geranium plants do not contain much DMAA. These companies are essentially trying to sell these energy drinks by creating a new ingredient or drug, and trying to say that it is only a plant extract.
The AAP has advised pediatricians to recommend to their patients not to use these products and energy drinks, since they contain potentially high amounts of stimulants such as DMAA and caffeine, which can elevate the possibility for developing dehydration, palpitations or dangerous arrhythmias, or insomnia.
Surely if DMAA was as dangerous as it has been made out to be in the media coverage, there would be a confluence of evidence from the risks identified in clinical studies and a substantial body of case reports tying those risks to adverse and fatal outcomes?
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