January 11, 2001

Body-Building Supplement Blamed for
Deaths

By REUTERS

BOSTON - People who use a dietary
supplement found in some body-building
products are risking death, researchers in
Minnesota, Texas and Florida report in
Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Lead researcher Deborah Zvosec of the Hennepin County Medical
Center in Minneapolis studied nine cases where people fell ill after
consuming products containing the supplement known formally as
1,4-butanediol or BD. Two died.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has identified 71 deaths
caused by BD and another 40 or so are being investigated as suspicious,
Zvosec told Reuters.

``And that's just the tip of the iceberg,'' she said because many people
with overdoses don't seek treatment.

There has been little formal study of BD, which is also used as an
industrial solvent. Promoters claim it is a natural and nontoxic way to
build muscle, improve athletic performance, increase libido and sexual
performance, reduce wrinkles, reverse baldness and reduce stress,
depression and insomnia. The claims have not been proven.

The chemical is often listed on ingredient labels as tetramethylene glycol,
butylene glycol or sucol-B, and it is contained in products with brand
names like Thunder Nectar, InnerG, Amino flex, Rejuv+Nite, Liquid
Gold, Thunder, Serenity, X-12 and N-Force.

In 1990, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of its
chemical cousin, gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB). But after Congress
passed a 1994 law making it harder for the federal government to
regulate ``health foods,'' manufacturers began marketing a similar product
called gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), according to Zvosec and her
colleagues.

In January 1999, the FDA warned that GBL was also dangerous.

After the health food industry voluntarily recalled products with GBL, BD
``began to be marketed as a 'replacement product,' for
gamma-butyrolactone,'' and promoters expanded their claims for the new
products, the Zvosec team said.

In May 1999, the FDA issued a warning about 1,4-butanediol
supplements as well, the researchers said.

Nonetheless, ``extensive marking continues on the Internet, and the use
of all three compounds, sometimes interchangeably, has increased,'' the
researchers said.

``If you talk to 100 doctors, maybe 10 have heard about this,'' said
co-author Dr. Stephen W. Smith of the Hennepin County Medical
Center. In an interview, he said doctors can identify the problem if they
know what to look for.