On the Chinese-developed TikTok app, a worrying development is emerging. When someone takes a scoop of pre-workout powder straight from the container, they are engaging in “dry scooping.” Gym sharks are taking the mix “straight to the head” in an effort to increase their TikTok followers and other social media platforms at their own risk.

Dry scooping has become a popular TikTok trend because people would not do it if they were not filmed. However, these individuals are sipping shots of dry powders meant to be used in fitness smoothies and drinks. This is a spin-off of another well-known – albeit hazardous – TikTok fad in which consumers were ingesting spoonfuls of other dry substances, including cinnamon. The stunt was so hazardous that it necessitated the hospitalization of several participants.

To be sure, some TikTok users swear by dry scooping. They claim that swallowing the powder straight rather than combining it with a beverage to take to the gym saves them a few seconds. These fans say they feel the “pump” faster and experience the effects of the powder sooner after consuming it in powdered form than if they consumed it in a smoothie form. Others simply want to be on-trend on TikTok.

Although dry scooping may be “fun,” it is truly hazardous. The Food and Drug Administration does not regulate pre-workout powders, which means individuals are consuming things that might include any number of chemicals. Even one source warned that ingesting dry powder might harm a person’s teeth.

At least one twenty-year-old individual has had a heart attack as a result of dry scooping. Other individuals could not breathe due to the powder restricting their windpipe.

“You have to use some common sense,” Dr. Saumil Oza, chief of cardiology at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Florida, told News4Jax. “Many things that you think are kind of crazy sounding actually are crazy-sounding for a reason because they could be hazardous to your health.”

Don’t just do “what someone on TikTok tells you to do”, according to Dr. Oza. Being a follower of the latest social media fad isn’t worth jeopardizing one’s health over.

Many pre-workout powders, on the other hand, include a lot of caffeine in order to help someone work out harder. They have three times the amount of caffeine as a typical cup of coffee.

“That big jolt of caffeine can ramp up the heart rate and the blood pressure, essentially putting a strain on the heart that can lead to the release of this cardiac enzyme called troponin,” which is associated with heart attacks, said Dr. Joy Gelbman in Women’s Health magazine, a cardiologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.“If you take a big shot of caffeine like that, in addition to any other caffeine you’re drinking in your normal daily habits, it can spike the blood pressure or the heart rate or lead to heart rhythm disturbances, which can be pretty dangerous to an otherwise young, healthy person.”

Be wary of the popular “dry scooping” online fad.