A TikToker Chugged 8 Scoops PreWorkout Supplement. This Is What Happened To His Brain. JA is a 25 year old man, presenting to the
emergency room, unconscious. His mother tells the admitting nurse that
she found her son unresponsive on the floor. You see, JA was a fitness TikToker who was
just trying to make it. He recently found out about dry scooping pre
workout supplement. This was a hot new trend where people would
dump powder directly in to their mouth in an effort to “bypass the water and allow
the body to digest it as soon as possible, so that the preworkout would hit harder.” Clearly, this was nonsense intended to sensationalize
an unnecessary class of supplement, but JA was determined. He was going to dry scoop preworkout for a
video to post, and get a hundred thousand followers. After putting 2 scoops of pre workout directly
into his mouth, JA felt like he was choking. He felt the powder immediately coat his tongue
and everything became dry. In an effort to not breathe any powder in,
he closed his eyes tight and tried to swallow. The video he posted gained him so many likes
and new followers, that he knew— he had push it further to get his follower gains. He was going to do 4 scoops next, and have
the biggest workout of his life, all documented in the biggest video he’s made yet. Immediately after putting 4 scoops of preworkout
supplement in his mouth, JA had instant regret. He knew he was going to choke on it and if
he didn't do anything, he would breathe it in. He thought it’d be funny for the video to
just chase it down with 4 more scoops already mixed in with water, as he washed everything
down, and got ready for his workout. At the gym now, JA didn’t feel well. The preworkout he took was loaded with caffeine,
creatine, and a “focus energy blend” made of a variety of things. He started sweating before he even started
touching the weights. He felt jittery during his sets. He could feel his heart beating in his neck
as his eyes started bulging out of his head. He knew he was wired, but it was hard to actually
get anything done. And while he was doing one of his sets, he
felt an instant headache breakthrough. He posted his video online, but didnt FOLLOW
any of the comments, because he COULDN’T follow any of the comments. At home now, JA wasn’t sure exactly what
was happening as he stumbled around. And as his mom came up to see what the commotion
was, she found her son huddled over on the floor as she calls for 911, and he’s brought
to the emergency room, where we are now. At examination, no one knew that JA had chugged
huge amounts of preworkout supplement. Even if they knew, they’d have no idea what
was really in that preworkout supplement. What they did know, was that he was unconscious
and unresponsive. He wouldn’t open his eyes, and when doctors
and his mom tried calling out his name, there was no response. JA’s heart rate was high. His breathing rate normal. When the nurse tried to take his blood pressure,
the machine just kept cycling, and it couldn’t get a reading. When they tried to do it manually, the measurement
came out 330 / 180, which is almost 3 times that of normal, and so high that the blood
pressure machine couldn’t produce an actual reading. In a previously healthy 25 year old man, one
reason why his blood pressure is so high, could be that he took something. But a screen didn’t return anything for
substances, so it didn’t look like he took anything illicit. A blood test finds nothing abnormal either. They looked at his heart rhythm and noticed
that along with his high blood pressure, his heart was beating erratically. All of these together could mean that this
is a problem with just his heart, but something’s wrong. When doctors looked at his pupils, they noticed
that one was bigger than the other. And the heart doesn't control the eyes, the
brain does. And if the brain controls the heart too, then
could the brain be the cause of his problems? Doctors send JA to get a scan of his head. The images suggest that parts of his brain
have been bleeding. Because the brain’s enclosed inside a hard
place, the skull, then bleeding into the brain would mean the brain’s expanding. The bleed, isn’t going to magically stop
itself when there’s no more space left, it’s just going to keep going, and keep
pushing the brain up against the sides of the skull, until the blood vessels start to
crush themselves as the brain folds on itself causing permanent damage. Is there a way doctors can temporarily shrink
JA’s brain to stop this? Maybe. Body water is a little salty, meaning that
it has some sodium in it. Cells have about the same amount too. This is important because wherever sodium
is, water will flow towards it. In this small science experiment, I dissolve
salt in this water and place it into a tube. I submerge the tube in a pool of water that
has no salt dissolved in it. You’ll see that water flows into the tube,
that water follows sodium. If the brain is swelling, then a temporary
fix could be to infuse saltier water in to JA. If the body water is saltier than the brain,
then it would temporarily suck water from the brain to relieve the pressure because
it’s expanding quickly. But this is only a quick fix for now, as he's
sent to the intensive care unit. Doctors still don’t know that JA had chugged
8 scoops of pre workout, because there isn’t anything in that supplement that anyone in
a hospital would test for. Except, his mom pulls up his phone and finds
the last video that he posted. She showed the doctors, and while it gives
them some clues as to what could have happened, their main priority is to see if there’s
anything they can do to relieve the pressure building up in his skull. Looking at the ingredients of the pre workout
supplement, two things immediately stood out. A single scoop, has 200 milligrams of caffeine,
which is around 2 cups of coffee. The recommended daily maximum for caffeine
is 400 milligrams. If JA swallowed 8 scoops of preworkout in
just a few seconds, it means the caffeine content he took was equal to chugging 17 cups
of coffee, and equal to 4 times the recommended daily limit. Caffeine is a stimulant, it increases adrenaline
in the blood, so it increases heart rate. It could explain why JA felt jittery. It increases blood pressure, which if high
enough, can stress the blood vessels, to the point of rupturing the walls of those blood
vessels, causing a bleed. But is caffeine alone, enough to cause a blood
pressure so high that the machine can’t even read it? On the ingredients list was another listing
named Beta Phenyl Ethyl Amine. It’s featured prominently in the marketing
materials of the preworkout supplement. You may have heard of something called Alpha
methyl Phenyl Ethyl Amine, which sometimes goes by Am. feta. Amine. Something that’s used in the treatment of
ADHD, that’s related to an N-Methyl Alpha Methyl Phenyl Ethyl Amine. Meth. Am. Phet. Et. Amine. In this pre workout supplement, the Beta Phenyl
Ethyl Amine was described to be a “Focus maintainer, to help promote mood, alertness,
and concentration,” similar to the function of am feta amine. But, something’s a little different here. In the brain, Beta Phenyl Ethyl Amine gets
broken down or metabolized, but am feta amine doesn't get broken down in the brain. It stays in, and the body needs to wait to
clear it out. This is a problem because in the synapse where
nerves connect, chemicals normally send signals. When the signal is done, the synapse needs
to clear itself so that signals aren’t sent nonstop. This means those chemicals that send the signals
need to be either pumped back in, or broken down. If a lot of amphetamine is present, the synapse
doesn’t get cleared. It keeps forcing more chemical out, sending
signals non-stop, continuously stimulating the nerve. This is why we call it a stimulant. Amphetamine doesn't get broken down in the
brain, so it stays there until it naturally clears out after a while. But Beta Phenyl Ethyl Amine, the chemical
that’s in JA’s pre workout, is supposed to get broken down in the brain quickly, that’s
why it’s not considered to be a controlled substance. But, when JA chugged and instantly swallowed
8 scoops worth of preworkout, there could have been simply too much of it, for parts
of his brain to break down quick enough. This is a problem because that signal from
the nerves also get sent to the heart, telling it to beat harder and faster. Huge amounts of Beta Phenyl Ethyl Amine probably
can’t get broken down quickly enough, so the signals aggressively push in to the heart,
causing it to beat harder and faster. But it’s not just the heart doing this,
JA’s blood vessels are constricting too. And when they constrict as the heart is beating
harder, this dramatically increases the blood pressure even more. The combination of huge amounts of caffeine
and beta phenyl ethyl amine in 8 scoops of preworkout swallowed at once with heavy lifting,
all together, could have increased JA’s blood pressure so high that it caused his
brain to start stroke in the form of a bleed. The dysfunction of the brain, caused dysfunction
in the heart, which was found first by the doctors, as they were trying to figure out
exactly what was going wrong. Doctors were able to prevent JA’s brain
from pushing up against his skull and oozing out the cracks. Surgeons removed parts of his skull, to relieve
the pressure building up in his head. But, the images showed that he didn’t have
any physical abnormalities that would have caused his brain to bleed like this. His past medical history also didn't show
that he was susceptible to this, because he was a healthy 25 year old man. Despite the doctors and surgeons at this point
really only caring to fix the problems caused by his brain bleed, the reality is, despite
evidence strongly suggesting that caffeine and beta phenyl ethyl amine are documented
to cause hemorrhagic strokes when taken inappropriately, there’s a always a little bit of doubt that
it was absolutely those that caused JA’s problems. You can’t set up an experiment to test on
people by giving them huge amounts of these things and waiting until their brains start
bleeding, because you’re intentionally harming people, and you might not be able to fix the
problems that you’re going to cause by doing that, which brings us to the final problem
of JA’s case. Supplements sometimes tell you on the label
to consult a physician first before taking it. That you should consult a physician before
starting any exercise program. And the reason why you’re probably gonna
be told to not take it, Is that we don’t really know what’s in here. Some of the brands might change the ingredients
and the amounts of those ingredients, and they don’t have to tell you about it. These “Complexes” and “Blends” might
be sourced differently depending on what state or country you’re from. And some of these might be based off herbal
ingredients that interact with your liver, and cause problems when actual medicines you
could be taking for a medical condition. This is coming from someone who is in medicine,
and also spent like 15 years of my life in powerlifting circles. I stepped on the platform to compete. I used to take supplements. And when I was competing, pre workouts like
this were just becoming a thing. Not many of us took it. And we certainly didn’t dry scoop it. There’s no such thing as “bypassing water
to digest it faster.” There’s such thing as bypassing the liver,
but that would imply that the preworkout is being absorbed in to your blood through your
cheeks and under your tongue, which for granular powder like this, isn’t happening. You’re voluntarily creating a choking hazard
for yourself by doing this. It’s a troll. If dry scooping is somehow a convenience for
you in some way, great, but don’t lie to yourself thinking that taking it that way
is doing something special. If you’re really training seriously, you
shouldn’t need anything extra to help you focus on training, because this is a non-essential
supplement. JA may have not had the support structure
of a team at a gym, to gain that insight, but the label of the preworkout also says
don’t take more than 2 scoops in a given day. Don’t push it with this kind of stuff. When stabilized after surgery, JA was moved
in to a step-down unit where he appeared to improve, likely thanks to the fact that he
was younger and previously healthy. He was moved to a rehabilitation facility
afterwards and after several months of care there, he was able to make a recovery. Thanks so much for watching. Take care of yourself. And be well.
the surprise twist when he revealed that he used to powerlift!!! so he’s a double expert!
TIL that -emia means presence in blood
"A ___________ ingested ______ of _____________. This is what happened to his ______."
...Seems to be becoming it's own genre of YouTube video.
I had pre workout once, it was like mkat
When did this dude's channel become so divisive? He spends ample time explaining exactly what his title states and all the steps doctors take to fix the problem and save an idiot. Take a look at his past videos, this is his thing.
Did he hurt people's feelings by showing how fucked preworkout is even in recommended doses or did he upset folks by showing it's useless aside from getting high?
Wow that's insane. Anyone has the source of the mentioned tiktok video?
ohh so this explains what happened the night me and a mate i was visiting at his uni did, when we ate like 5 or 6 scoops of this kinda stuff, after a good few pints, and before clubbing.. we were fucked up that night...
Does anybody have the link to the actual tiktok?
murder all clickbait videos