Creative with creatine
Poland was at the centre of a 12-country investigation into US supplements containing the novel food ingredients agmatine sulphate and creatine nitrate as well as citrulline.
Agmatine sulphate has been sold by the likes of Bodybuilding.com in the US – but not in the EU – as a nitric oxide enhancer.
The company described the product as “one of the newest and most promising compounds to hit the sports nutrition industry since the release of creatine”.
However in the EU there is no evidence of its consumption as a food or ingredient before 15 May 1997, meaning it would need to have novel food approval before being sold in the region.
The EU novel food catalogue defined it as a “decarboxylation product of the amino acid arginine and is an intermediate in polyamine biosynthesis. It is considered a neurotransmitter; agmatine inhibits or inactivates nitric oxide synthase (NOS), and induces the release of some peptide hormones”.
According to the catalogue, the α-amino acid L-citrulline malate has a history of use in the EU before 1997 only as a food supplement ingredient, meaning other uses would have to have approval.