Warning on Workout Supplement

Physicians in Sweden and the Netherlands are alerting physicians in the US to be on the lookout for cardiac and vascular events in patients who use a sports supplement called Jacked Power—or other supplements that may contain an amphetamine-like substance B-methylpheylethylamine (BMPEA)

The doctors’ analysis showed that unlabeled BMPEA in the supplement like caused a healthy 53-year-old woman in Sweden to have a hemorrhagic stroke after taking Jacked Power before exercising.

Writing in Annals of Internal Medicine a group of researchers including two at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, NL; two Harvard University physicians and one physician from Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, caution that BMPEA is similar to amphetamine and that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned supplement makers to stop using it.

The Swedish patient presented with numbness and clumsiness in her left hand which she said had begun 45 minutes after beginning her usual rigorous daily workout a day earlier.

She was healthy, had normal weight and had low blood pressure.

But a CT scan of her head showed a 2 cm hemorrhage with no underlying abnormalities.

When she told physicians she had never taken the supplement before the incident, they sent it out for analysis. That revealed a 290 mg per dose concentration of BMPEA.

The team advises physicians to report any similar adverse events which appear related to supplement consumption to either the FDA or to appropriate authorities in Europe.

A report on the incident was published in Sweden in September 2014.