Former Bodybuilder Discusses Possible Hydroxycut Side Effects

Dallas, TXAmong the people who took Hydroxycut supplements are bodybuilders, who hoped to use the supplement to help obtain and maintain a chiseled look. Melissa P. (not her real name) is among that group. She took Hydroxycut diet supplements in the hope of one day becoming a fitness model. Now, Melissa faces a future liver transplant and wonders if she suffers from Hydroxycut liver damage.

"In the 1990s, I was very active and involved in exercise," Melissa says. "Then, in the mid-90s, I became involved in amateur bodybuilding. My plans were to advance as far as being a fitness model. I had seen ads for Hydroxycut in all the various bodybuilding magazines that I subscribed to. You know, when you're really working out and you have a goal, you try to get any help you can, short of steroids. I starting using Hydroxycut and I liked the results. I got chiseled and cut and looked good. I took it from the mid-90s up until around 2004. Like I say, I had a great body.

Then, as time went by, my physicians at check ups would make comments about my liver enzymes being a little high. They asked if I had been taking anything and I asked what I could have taken. They said Ibuprofen, or Tylenol. I said to them, 'I live in the gym, so of course I've taken both.' They said it must be that I took Tylenol or Ibuprofen before my blood test and nothing else was said about it.

More time went by and I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. The doctors kept telling me my enzymes were really high. It finally alarmed one doctor so much in 2005—I had gone to my rheumatologist, he had done a blood test and he said 'I am very concerned about your liver enzymes. I am sending you to a liver specialist because these numbers are way too high.' The liver specialist did a biopsy on my liver and told me that I have cirrhotic liver [essentially, liver cirrhosis] that was not caused by alcohol, hepatitis or drug abuse. They ruled those factors out in testing.

One day, I was watching the news and, lo and behold, I hear them talking about Hydroxycut and the claims about liver damage and it just, it made me break out in cold bumps all over. I thought of how many bottles of that stuff I downed over the years. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

They said that it will eventually lead to a liver transplant; it's inevitable. And, I'm under the care of a transplant specialist now. I'm taking Ursodiol, which I just hate. It's supposed to slow the process [of liver failure] or something, but the side effects of that are worse than having actual problems.

As for the Fibromyalgia, I'm kind of wondering if it [Hydroxycut] didn't have something to do with the diagnosis. I'm learning about the liver and everything it takes care of, day in and day out, that we never give a second thought to.

Because of the liver problems, now I've got this foggy brain that is not processing things right. It's hard for me to get words out and I'm not a dumb woman. A word that I ought to know and it escapes me and that is so frustrating. The Fibromyalgia—I can't help but wonder if that was part of the liver problems and it hadn't reared its ugly head yet.

I would just tell people to do their homework before they start downing stuff that's not regulated."