A popular and controversial sports supplement widely sold in the USA and other countries is secretly spiked with a chemical similar to methamphetamine that appears to have its origins as an illicit designer recreational drug, according to new tests by scientists in the USA and South Korea.
The test results on samples of Craze, a pre-workout powder made by New York-based Driven Sports and marketed as containing only natural ingredients, raise significant health and regulatory concerns, the researchers said.
The U.S. researchers also said they found the same methamphetamine-like chemical in another supplement, Detonate, which is sold as an all-natural weight loss pill by another company: Gaspari Nutrition.
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Because of the government shutdown, officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees dietary supplements, could not be reached for comment. Calls to the Drug Enforcement Administration also weren't returned.
Cohen said researchers informed the FDA in May about finding the new chemical compound in Craze. The team found the compound N,alpha-diethylphenylethylamine has a structure similar to methamphetamine, a powerful, highly addictive, illegal stimulant drug. They believe the new compound is likely less potent than methamphetamine but greater than ephedrine.
"There are suggestions about how it's tweaked that it should not be as addictive as meth," Cohen said. But because it hasn't been studied, he said, its dangers aren't known. The team said it began testing Craze in response to several failed urine drug tests by athletes who said they had taken Craze.
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Craze's label does not disclose the compound found by the researchers. Instead it says the product contains dendrobium orchid extract that was concentrated for different phenylethylamine compounds. Phenylethylamines include a variety of chemicals "that range from benign compounds found in chocolate to synthetically produced illicit drugs," according to the U.S. researchers.
The U.S. researchers noted that an "extensive" search of scientific literature does not find any evidence that the compound listed on Craze's label has ever been documented as a component of dendrobium orchid extract. The U.S. research team included Cohen; John Travis, a scientist at NSF International, a Michigan-based testing and standards organization that has a dietary supplement certification program; and Bastiaan Venhuis of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands.
