The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it found “hazardous levels” of selenium in certain flavours of dietary supplements marketed as “Total Body Formula” and”Total Body Mega Formula”.
Both products are distributed by Total Body Essential Nutrition of Atlanta, whose name is also on the labelling. The distributor is voluntarily recalling all the products, which it said are distributed throughout the US.
So far the agency has received over 40 reports of people from 9 different states who have experienced serious reactions including significant hair loss, deformed fingernails, diarrhea, joint pain, fatigue and muscle cramps after using these products. These symptoms are consistent with ingesting excessive amounts of selenium and occurred about 10 days after daily use.
The FDA issued a warning on 27th March asking consumers not to buy or use the Tropical Orange and Peach Nectar flavours of “Total Body Formula” and the Orange/Tangerine flavour of “Total Body Mega Formula” after receiving reports of people in Florida and Tennessee experiencing adverse reactions after using the products.
At the time of its latest update on 7th April, the FDA had received 43 adverse reaction reports affecting people in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
The agency has analysed samples of the products and found that most of them contained extremely high levels of selenium, in some cases up to 200 times that indicated on the product label (40,800 micrograms instead of 200 micrograms). The FDA is continuing to look into how the excessive levels of selenium got into the products.
