Dexaprine: A Fatburner On Speed

We all have to thank one scientist from Holland’s small National Institute for Public Health for doing what much larger organisations failed to do: protect and alert consumers.

Just A Couple Of Herbs?

Walk into your local supplement store, even just into the supplement aisle of the nearest supermarket, and chances are you’ll see it: Dexaprine, a weight loss supplement.

Pick up the box and you’ll read that it comes with natural ingredients such as green tea and acacia rigidula extract.

But is that all?

Cardiac Arrest From “Natural” Ingredients?

Over in Holland users of Dexaprine reported increased heart rates, vomiting and chest pain, among others. The worst case was a user who went into cardiac arrest.

It was bad enough for Dutch authorities to step in and do some proper lab testing. The results speak for themselves:

Analysis […] confirmed the presence of synephrine, oxilofrine, deterenol, yohimbine, caffeine, and theophylline. Two more compounds were found which were tentatively identified as beta-methyl-beta-phenylethylamines.

Oxilofrine is an amphetamine and the “beta-methyl-beta-phenylethylamines” are subtances related to amphetamines. We already had a lot of fun with those in the cases of Jack3d and OxyElite Pro.

iForce Nutrition – A Company With A History

The company behind Dexaprine is Tribravus Enterprises, LLC, who is doing business as “iForce Nutrition.” Putting undeclared substances into supplements isn’t new territory for them:

• In 2010 they had to do a recall of their product “Reversitol” because it contained an aromatase inhibitor – a substance whose abuse can lead to kidney failure and liver damage.
• In 2011 they pleaded guilty to manufacturing supplements containing synthetic steroids.

A history like this is almost standard in the supplement industry.

Meet Bastiaan Venhuis

The man who uncovered the unsavoury truth about Dexaprine was Bastiaan Venhuis, who works for the Dutch National Institute of Public Health. It was also he who discovered that a methamphetamine analog came with “Craze,” the now infamous supplement.

Compared to the FDA (15,000 employees), the Dutch institute he is working for is small (1,500 employees), yet it was them who issued a warning about Dexaprine already last summer. The FDA so far did nothing.

It’s food for thought that a body 1/10th the size of the FDA is much more effective, because the latter is shackled through lobbying that turned it into a toothless tiger.

Picture courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.