Coroner: Dead Marathoner Had DMAA in System

LONDONClaire Squires, who died running 2012's London Marathon, had DMAA (1,3 -dimethylamylamine) in her system at the time of death, according to coroner Philip Barlow, M.D. The 30-year-old Squires allegedly took sports nutrition supplement Jack3d (from USPlabs), which contained DMAA, during the April 22, 2012 race; she collapsed on the final stretch of the marathon's course.

According to BBC reports, the coroner said Squires died of cardiac failure caused by the combination of extreme exertion and DMAA toxicity.

Members of the sports nutrition sector have already responded to claims questioning the industry's integrity. In a statement released by the European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance (ESSNA), Adam Carey, MD, said the sports nutrition industry complies fully with existing regulations.

It could not be further from the truth that sports nutrition is unregulated. It is, in fact, governed by strict laws and regulations made in both the UK and Europe, including the Food Safety Act and the Medicines Act," Carey, ESSNA's chair, said. "Regulatory bodies, including the Food Standards Agency and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency, backed up by trading standards officers around the country, keep a close eye on the industry, as the banning of DMAA itself demonstrated."

In August 2012, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency ruled DMAA an unlicensed medicinal product, and products containing it were pulled from U.K. shelves.

DMAA has not escaped scrutiny in the United States. In April 2012just two days after the London MarathonFDA sent warning letters to 10 DMAA marketers, and class action lawsuits popped up against General Nutrition Centers Inc. (GNC), DMAA supplement manufacturers and several of the companies that received the FDA letters. In the process, several companies have removed DMAA from their products, while others are countering FDA's allegations.

Even still, the fate of DMAA in the United States is unknown. Learn more about DMAA's legal status and the opposing arguments in INSIDER's 2012: A Year in Review Digital Issue .