• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

“Dry Scooping” Pre-Workout Powder Has Been Tried By 1 in 5 Young Men, Despite Risks

February 13, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

Many people like to drink dietary supplements for a pre-workout boost. These often contain caffeine, creatine, and other ingredients said to have benefits for exercise performance. Many come in powdered form, designed to be dissolved in liquid before consumption. However, a concerning trend sparked on TikTok and other social media platforms has seen a rise in the so-called “dry scooping” of these powders, and a new study of Canadian adolescents found that 16.9 percent of those surveyed had tried this technique in the preceding 12 months.

What is dry scooping and what are the risks?

Dry scooping literally means eating a scoop of powder without first mixing it into a drink. Those who remember the viral cinnamon challenge – for reference, we’re talking way back in the heady days of the Harlem shake and the ice bucket challenge – will be aware of the concept.

Advertisement

Apart from the unpleasantness of trying to swallow a mouthful of powdery dryness, there are some serious potential health consequences to be aware of. This was highlighted by one mother in 2015 after her four-year-old son tragically died when he accidentally ingested almost an entire container of cinnamon powder. The woman begged people still considering the viral challenge to think again, describing how the cinnamon powder entered her son’s lungs, eventually suffocating him.

Accidental inhalation and choking is a risk when ingesting any powdered substance in large quantity, but some of the ingredients that are specifically found in pre-workout supplements can cause their own set of problems. 

Take, for example, caffeine. The doses of caffeine in these types of products can be very high, and taking the powder without diluting it first means you’re effectively getting all that caffeine in one go. This can lead to rapid heart rate, chest pain, and dizziness, among other symptoms. If not treated in time, caffeine toxicity can be fatal.

The US National Capital Poison Center also notes that pre-workout supplements are not well regulated, and therefore could contain other – potentially toxic – ingredients that are missing from the label.

Advertisement

Essentially, the message is that these products are supposed to be diluted for a reason, and should only be taken per the directions on the packaging. So why the rise in dry scooping in the first place, and how widespread is this trend?

Why are people dry scooping and how common is it?

The main justification for dry scooping is the claim that it allows the pre-workout supplements to be absorbed, and therefore take effect, more quickly than consuming them in the proper way. Speaking to Fatherly, primary care and sports medicine physician Dr Benedict Ifedi pointed out that, while that may be true, it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Aside from the risks we’ve already discussed around consuming large amounts of these ingredients in a short space of time, there isn’t a whole lot of research to suggest that pre-workout supplements are even worth bothering with in the first place.

A 2018 review found that certain pre-workout supplements could be a useful addition to an athlete’s training regimen, but highlighted the paucity of long-term safety studies, and the importance of discussing supplementation with a healthcare provider to ensure there are no interactions with other medications that might need to be taken into account. Another review highlighted the need for better regulation of these products, to try to mitigate the risks associated with fraudulent ingredient labeling. And, as dietician Kate Patton told Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials, you may be able to get all the same benefits from a carefully balanced diet.

Advertisement

With all the videos and media coverage warning about the dangers of dry scooping, though, there had not been an attempt by researchers to clarify how widespread the practice might be in different groups. That is, until a new study looked at data from 2,371 young people included in the Canadian Study of Adolescent Health Behaviors.

“To date […] there have been no epidemiological studies investigating the occurrence of dry scooping among young people, leaving significant information unknown,” said lead author Kyle T. Ganson, of the University of Toronto, in a statement.

In total, 16.9 percent of the young people included in the survey reported dry scooping within the previous year. It was significantly more common in those who identified as male (21.8 percent), compared with those identifying as female (14.2 percent), or transgender/gender non-conforming (8 percent).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, dry scooping was more likely to be reported by those who take part in weight training, and those who spend more of their time on social media. “Our data shows that novel dietary phenomena that become popularized on social media and within gym culture can lead to a greater likelihood of engagement,” said Ganson.

Advertisement

The researchers were also concerned about the link they found between dry scooping and clinical symptoms of muscle dysmorphia – a mental health condition in which people become preoccupied with building muscle due to the distorted perception that their bodies are too small. The need to achieve what they consider to be the ideal body may lead them to dangerous practices like dry scooping.

What’s clear from all of this is that more research is needed to better understand how pre-workout supplements may be affecting people over the long term, and how they may be safely incorporated into a fitness regimen. The researchers emphasized the need for better education about the potential harms of dry scooping, as well as greater awareness among health professionals.

“We need health care and mental health care providers to be knowledgeable of these unique dietary practices aimed at increasing performance and musculature, such as dry scooping,” Ganson concluded.

The new study is published in the journal Eating Behaviors.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Germany condemns Belarus oppositionists’ sentencing
  2. Biden urges countries to join pledge to reduce methane emissions in climate fight
  3. We’re Closer Than Ever To Understanding The Mysterious Phenomenon Déjà Vu
  4. Humans Will Walk On The Moon In 2025, NASA Announces

Source Link: "Dry Scooping" Pre-Workout Powder Has Been Tried By 1 in 5 Young Men, Despite Risks

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • World’s Oldest Pachycephalosaur Fossil Pushes Back These Dinosaurs’ Emergence By 15 Million Years
  • The Hole In The Ozone Layer Is Healing And On Track For Full Recovery In The 21st Century, Thanks To Science
  • First Sweet Potato Genome Reveals They’re Hybrids With A Puzzling Past And 6 Sets Of Chromosomes
  • Why Is The Top Of Canada So Sparsely Populated? Meet The “Canadian Shield”
  • Humans Are In The Middle Of “A Great Evolutionary Transition”, New Paper Claims
  • Why Do Some Toilets Have Two Flush Buttons?
  • 130-Year-Old Butter Additive Discovered In Danish Basement Contains Bacteria From The 1890s
  • Prehistoric Humans Made Necklaces From Marine Mollusk Fossils 20,000 Years Ago
  • Zond 5: In 1968 Two Soviet Steppe Tortoises Beat Humans To Orbiting Around The Moon
  • Why Cats Adapted This Defense Mechanism From Snakes
  • Mother Orca Seen Carrying Dead Calf Once Again On Washington Coast
  • A Busy Spider Season Is Brewing: Why This Fall Could See A Boom Of Arachnid Activity
  • What Alternatives Are There To The Big Bang Model?
  • Magnetic Flip Seen Around First Photographed Black Hole Pushes “Models To The Limit”
  • Something Out Of Nothing: New Approach Mimics Matter Creation Using Superfluid Helium
  • Surströmming: Why Sweden’s Stinky Fermented Fish Smells So Bad (But People Still Eat It)
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version