FDA Warns Consumers About Hydroxycut
May 2, 2009 by David Kindervater
Filed under Fitness
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a consumer advisory yesterday about certain Hydroxycut-branded products. According to the advisory, the FDA has received 23 reports over more than seven years about consumers having experienced serious liver-related problems coinciding with the time they were taking Hydroxycut-branded products. There might also be one related death. The problem could stem from an ingredient called hydroxycitric acid.
The advisory states:
“Although the liver damage appears to be relatively rare, FDA believes consumers should not be exposed to unnecessary risk.”
It’s true, this is a small number of reports relative to the many millions of bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts who have used Hydroxycut products over the years. But Iovate Health Sciences Inc. is voluntarily recalling the following Hydroxycut-branded products:
- Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets
- Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Rapid Release Caplets
- Hydroxycut Hardcore Liquid Caplets
- Hydroxycut Max Liquid Caplets
- Hydroxycut Regular Drink Packets
- Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Drink Packets
- Hydroxycut Hardcore Drink Packets (Ignition Stix)
- Hydroxycut Max Drink Packets
- Hydroxycut Liquid Shots
- Hydroxycut Hardcore RTDs (Ready-to-Drink)
- Hydroxycut Max Aqua Shed
- Hydroxycut 24
- Hydroxycut Carb Control
- Hydroxycut Natural
I find this all pretty disturbing as I am more than familiar with Iovate poducts. If you’re into bodybuilding and/or fitness, you might know them better as Muscletech. Over the past ten years, I’ve tried their Cell-Tech, Nitro-Tech, Mass-Tech and Pump-Tech (now discontinued) products. They also make a bargain brand of similar supplements under the name of Six Star Muscle (therefore, you might want to watch out for Hydroxycut bargain brand Drenalin Hardcore as well). Their main headquarters is located a few hours away from me in Oakville, Ontario and they have a U.S. distribution center in nearby Blasdell, NY. Fitness and bodybuilding mags are loaded with their ads (they have a $250,000 Hydroxycut Hard Body Challenge running in the current issue of Muscle & Fitness) and you can find Hydroxycut products almost everywhere, including Wal*Mart and GNC. In fact, GNC is was giving away a free Hydroxycut Ready-to-Drink beverage with any Muscletech purchase during the month of May.
I’m not saying all Muscletech products are dangerous. I’m not even saying all Hydroxycut products are dangerous. But it is a dark day for Iovate and the Hydroxycut brand. So, this is yet another wake-up call for consumers to have a better understanding of the ingredients in the products they are taking. Most bodybuilding and fitness supplements have not been approved by the FDA. So, you should take a good look at the labels, do your research and make an educated decision if you’re going to be using these products.
Great, informative writing on the very popular product that will surely have a lot of people discarding unused Hydroxycut into the trash.
I have used Hydroxycut in the past, way back when it still had Ephedra in it. Yeah, that long ago. Back then I was under the assumption as most people are, that you can take a product like this and it does all the work for you. A lot of people have actually had some weight loss success from Hydroxycut.
I had no idea that Lovate was the makers of the 6 Star products but I heard that they make the Muscle Asylum products but have never seen anything to back that up.
Does anyone know if the hydroxycut hard body challege is cancelled now?
I would also like to know if the Hard Body challanged has been cancelled.
I think they should still award someone that put all blood sweat and tears into the challange even if their product sucks!
I have been training for the Hard Body challenge since Jan. 15th. I have lost 30 lbs. and I used Hydroxycut Max without any problems. I will be disappointed if this is cancelled.