Data Suggest Muscle-Building Supplement ‘BD’ Could Be Deadly

People who use a dietary supplement found in some body-building products are risking serious harm to their health, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.

A team of researchers led by Deborah L. Zvosec, a research associate at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, identified eight patients who became ill after consuming products containing the supplement called BD, formally known as 1,4-butanediol. Two of those patients died.

There has been little formal study of BD, which is also used as an industrial solvent. Companies that market the substance 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 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 dietary supplements, 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 marketing 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. He said doctors can identify the problem if they know what to look for.

One symptom is a sudden swing between wild, combative behavior and an abrupt loss of consciousness, he said, adding other symptoms include nausea and incontinence.