Go to the weight room in the Intramural building at any point in the day and you will see a room filled with mostly guys, and a few girls, attempting to get ripped this school year. If you take a closer look around you will notice that many of those who are working out are also drinking some form of pre-workout or workout supplement. However even though these drinks may promote short term gains, they can actually be detrimental to long term health.
Now before there can be a discussion on how preworkout may be killing you, we first need to clear up what is actually in there. Pre Workout is typically made up of “Caffeine, Creatine, Arginine., Ephedrine, β-Alanine, 1,3-Dimethylamylamine.” Most of the things that are listed above have been proven to be failry safe, (there are some negitive side effects of caffeine but it is so common that no one really cares) except for the last one. 1,3-Dimethylamylamine was originally a “nasal decongestant”, but it has since been marketed towards the exercise crowd.The drug works as a stimulant which increases your heart rate and blood pressure. This can lead to “increased chance of heart attack and stroke”, according to WebMD. In fact just a few years ago, the preworkout Jack3d was challenged because an army private died from a heart attack while on a run after taking the supplements. Since then, all products with 1,3-Dimethylamylamine have been banned from all military bases.
The largest problem with pre workout is the fact that for the most part it is not regulated by the FDA. All foods and drugs have to be approved by the FDA, but preworkout seems to slide through the cracks in the system. Those who market the products will say that there are no negative health effects, but in reality the science has not had a chance to catch up to every new drug that comes out. Similar to the problem that was presented when people began to challenge smoking, if there is a health detriment from pre workout it will come years after the fact. This long time delay presents a unique problem for those who wish to test it. However with the little amount of testing that has been done, most are fairly confident that consistent use of pre workout can lead to “dehydration, kidney problems and high blood pressure.”
In the end the choice falls on those who use the product. They must decide if short term gains in muscle mass are worth the possible health concerns later in life. I am sure that in the coming years there will be more studies regarding the health benefits versus the consequences, but until then it seems to be a major grey area.
I agree with a few of the comments above, in thinking that your blog is very interesting. I think it is very weird how so many people use pre workout, and it is not even regulated by the FDA. It almost seems stupid to use something that has so many health risks. Personally, I am not a user, but I know many kids that are, so I will warn them that they are increasing their chance of heart attack or stroke.
I took pre-workout a few times and you get a feeling that is completely different. You basically feel numb. After I received that feeling I stopped taking it because I looked at it like energy drinks, there is no possible way it was good for your health. Your blog post is very in depth and made me realize the research I never went into when checking if pre workout was good for your health or not.
I took pre-workout a few times and you get a feeling that is completely different. You basically feel numb. After I received that feeling I stopped taking it because I looked at it like energy drinks, there is no possible way it was good for your health. Your blog post is very in depth and made me realize the research I never went into when checking if pre workout was good for your health or not.
I took pre-workout a few times and you get a feeling that is completely different. You basically feel numb. After I received that feeling I stopped taking it because I looked at it like energy drinks, there is no possible way it was good for your health. Your blog post is very in depth and made me realize the research I never went into when checking if pre workout was good for your health or not.
I took pre-workout a few times and you get a feeling that is completely different. You basically feel numb. After I received that feeling I stopped taking it because I looked at it like energy drinks, there is no possible way it was good for your health. Your blog post is very in depth and made me realize the research I never went into when checking if pre workout was good for your health or not.
I took pre-workout a few times and you get a feeling that is completely different. You basically feel numb. After I received that feeling I stopped taking it because I looked at it like energy drinks, there is no possible way it was good for your health. Your blog post is very in depth and made me realize the research I never went into when checking if pre workout was good for your health or not.
I took pre-workout a few times and you get a feeling that is completely different. You basically feel numb. After I received that feeling I stopped taking it because I looked at it like energy drinks, there is no possible way it was good for your health. Your blog post is very in depth and made me realize the research I never went into when checking if pre workout was good for your health or not.
Wow, I was always conscious that using pre-workout supplements is risky due to health reasons but I didn’t know that they were not regulated by the FDA. I think that it’s sketchy because you don’t know the long term effects on your body. I personally don’t use them but a lot of my guy friends do and they are religious about using them. I’ll definitely be passing on this knowledge to them.
With so many people using pre-workout supplements, it is definitely something that should be monitored by the FDA. Every now and again you hear of some crazy supplement that gets shut down because it is just too potent and uses ingredients that make it dangerous. Here is an article from the Boston Globe talking about a specific example of a pre-workout using a banned substance. Anything that is not monitored by the FDA should be taken with extreme caution and people should know the risks associated with it.