DMAA is illegal in the UK

TL:DR – The purportedly natural bodybuilding and weight-loss supplement DMAA is illegal in the UK and elsewhere.


Back in April 2012, the US Food & Drug Administration ordered supplement manufacturers to stop selling bodybuilding and weight-loss products containing DMAA, 1,3-dimethylamylamine, methylhexanamine, also known as geranium extract. Ingestion of the compound is thought to carry a risk of cardiac arrest or stroke as well having been linked to other problems such as harm to the nervous system and psychiatric disorders.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) slapped a ban on the sale of DMAA in all sports supplements and other products at the end of August 2012, according to spectroscopynow.com. Earlier in August, sibling site separationsnow.com discussed the issue of so-called “natural” DMAA.

“A drug initially introduced as a vasoconstrictor [used as a decongestant] in the 1940s has gained notoriety in recent years due to its inclusion as an active ingredient in sports supplements backed up by claims that it is a natural ingredient,” the site reports. “Those companies marketing the products refer to a paper published in 1996 which claimed to have discovered it in the geranium Pelargonium graveolens but a number of research groups have since cast doubt on that claim.”