RAPTURE preworkout powder is recalled nationwide over DMAA, a stimulant that can raise blood pressure

RAPTURE Preworkout, a powdered energy supplement in 450-gram tubs with red and black lettering and a rhinoceros print seal, contains a stimulant that was never listed on its label. Leader Formulas LLC of Tomball, Texas, announced a nationwide recall of one lot, number 260327-4, on 6 October 2026, and the Food and Drug Administration published the notice a day later. The ingredient is 1,3-dimethylamylamine, better known as DMAA.

The recall covers three flavors: Rainbow Twist, Electric Lemonade and Berry Mojito. According to the notice, the product was sold at retail and online through the company’s own website between 29 January 2025 and 25 May 2026, a stretch of nearly sixteen months.

Lot 260327-4 and the FDA laboratory result

According to the company announcement FDA posted, the discovery came from the agency’s own laboratory: “The issue was discovered in the product during testing by the FDA.” Leader Formulas says it has not received any reports of adverse events tied to the recall. The notice gives the UPC codes for the three flavors, 710154236506 for Rainbow Twist, 710143 236513 for Electric Lemonade as printed, and 710154236544 for Berry Mojito. It does not list an expiration date, so the lot number printed on the tub is the identifier that separates recalled product from any other RAPTURE container.

The recall follows an earlier public warning. On 5 May 2026, FDA published a consumer notification about RAPTURE Preworkout saying its laboratory analysis had found DMAA that was not declared on the label, and advising people not to purchase or use it. That warning noted the supplement was sold on leaderformulas.com and possibly in some retail stores, and it observed that the supplement industry sometimes lists DMAA as “geranium extract.” Five months separate the agency’s warning from the company’s recall announcement.

Blood pressure and the heart

The recall notice states plainly that “using DMAA can result in elevated blood pressure,” and that the stimulant could lead to cardiovascular problems including heart attack, shortness of breath and tightening of the chest. The agency’s ingredient page adds that the risks climb when DMAA is combined with other stimulants such as caffeine, the usual companion in a preworkout powder, and links the compound to arrhythmias, seizures and other neurological and psychological conditions.

FDA also says it has no information showing that consuming DMAA is safe, and its guidance tells people not to buy or use any product containing it. In the May warning, the agency told anyone who had experienced side effects from RAPTURE to consult a health care professional as soon as possible. It also acknowledged a limit on its own reach: FDA cannot test and identify every supplement that may contain a harmful hidden ingredient, so a lot caught in agency testing is a sample of the market, not a count of it.

DMAA’s long run as an unlawful supplement ingredient

The compound is no stranger to enforcement. In FDA’s account of its DMAA actions, the agency began sending warning letters in 2012, with a first batch dated 24 April of that year, because DMAA is “not a dietary ingredient” and any product sold as a supplement that contains it is illegal. In 2013 the agency detained OxyElite Pro and Jack3d after USPLabs at first declined voluntary compliance, and seized DMAA products from Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals. A federal court ruled the Hi-Tech products adulterated in April 2017, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in 2019 that DMAA is neither a dietary ingredient nor generally recognized as safe, and the Supreme Court declined review in 2020, after which the seized products were destroyed on 12 November 2020. DMAA was once approved as a nasal decongestant drug, FDA notes, but that approval has ended and the agency recognizes no current medical use for it.

The first wave of letters hit the market quickly. CNBC reported that FDA wrote to ten companies, naming products including Jack3d, OxyElite Pro, Muscle Warfare Napalm and Hemo Rage Black, and that Amazon stopped carrying DMAA products afterward. Shares of vendors selling the products fell the following Monday, with GNC closing down 4.7 percent.

Years later, DMAA was still turning up. Pieter Cohen, a Harvard Medical School internist who studies supplements, told WHYY in 2018 that pre-workout products claiming DMAA were still sold online, even as newer “novel stimulants” drew his attention. The same report recalled a 2011 case in which two soldiers died after taking Jack3d, though a link between the product and the deaths was never proven.

FDA’s ingredient page also tells label readers what to look for: the names methylhexanamine, geranamine and dimethylamylamine, and in some cases “Pelargonium graveolens extract” or “geranium extract.” For RAPTURE, the May warning made the point that the ingredient was missing from the label altogether, which is the gap that lot 260327-4 now carries into the recall record.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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