What is dry scooping on TikTok? Experts urge users not to take on this trend

9 June 2021, 11:29 | Updated: 9 June 2021, 11:38

There's another trend sweeping the social media platform, but experts are warning of its dangers. Find out more about dry-scooping here.

TikTok sees users from all walks of life take on trends and memes of all kinds.

So it's no surprise that the fitness community have carved out a whole part of the platform for themselves and one trend that seems to be taking it by storm at the moment is dry scooping.

The term might speak for itself, but for those of us still in the dark, what is the dry scooping trend on TikTok and why are doctors and health experts so against it?

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What is dry scooping?

Dry scooping is the act of ingesting a dry scoop of protein powder and chasing it with a little water before working out.

It's a technique employed by fitness fanatics in order to maximise the effects of the amino acids, caffeine, B vitamins, and creatine in the supplement to get an extra energy burst before their work out sessions.

Why is dry scooping dangerous?

Doctors are warning that the trend is dangerous because dry scooping doesn't give the body time to absorb protein powder, which tends to include extremely high amounts of caffeine.

It's digesting this caffeine in such a small space of time, which can not only be problematic, but very risky.

Dr Daniel Atkinson told the Metro he was "concerned" over the trend, revealing: "Certain pre-workout powders contain lots of caffeine, sometimes extremely high amounts. When you mix the power into a shake, you’ll typically drink it over a few minutes.

"You wouldn’t consume the whole thing in one go, and you shouldn’t do this. You need to give the body time to absorb what you provide it with."

He added: "Ingesting a high amount of caffeine in a very short space of time can be problematic and risky.

"Consuming too much caffeine can cause several symptoms including dilated pupils, increased urination, dizziness, headaches, dehydration, nausea, pain in the chest and irregular heartbeats or palpitations.

"The more you consume in one go, the more at risk you will be. This is especially true if you’re of a certain age, or you have a history with heart or chest problems."

The warning unfortunately came too late for one TikTok user, who claimed that dry scooping led her to have a heart attack.

She captioned the video: "Taking a dry pre workout scoop bc I saw it trending on tiktok.

"Ending up in hospital because I had a 'heart attack'".

Other than the above, it's been noted that eating a large amount of dried powder carries the immediate risk of choking.

Dr. Gelbman told Women's Health: "Taking a big scoop of a powdered substance without water [poses] the immediate risk that you would choke".

This case saw a woman appear to struggle to breathe and needed her asthma pump!

Dr. Gelbman added that by inhaling any type of powder "you can aspirate it into your lungs and get pneumonia".

They added: "Anything that you're taking, even if it's a supplement, you probably want to connect with your doctor, certainly taking it in some kind of off-label way like dry-scooping it should be something to really not do at all or do at your own risk."

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