DMAE became a common ingredient in skin products for both men and women through widely televised infomercials. The inventor of the DMAE chemical, Nicholas Perricone, a clinical and research dermatologist, proclaimed noticeable changes in the appearance of the skin with regular use, and eventually a lot of people believed him.

Just how serious is the DMAE hazard?  Chemical DMAE is often claimed to be natural, because anchovies and sardines contain DMAE. When natural DMAE goes through a process of digestion, it's converted into a useful state. It's a different story with chemical DMAE, especially when it gets into the blood stream without digestion. A recent study at the Faculty of Medicine at Canada's Université Laval shows drastic and rapid swelling of fibroblasts (the matrix which connects cells) after topical application. Structural damage to muscles and joints has far reaching implications, particularly for athletes who train intensively, however damage to deep organs doesn't stop there.

"Although within the developing and adult heart, the fibroblast is often dismissed as merely a structural element, important just to mechanical integrity, research at Developmental Cell now reports an essential program of paracrine factor production in cardiac fibroblasts that controls heart muscle cell growth, driving cycling or enlargement depending on the fibroblasts' developmental stage." The cardio-vascular hazards of DMAE are a concern since in the Laval study, within a few hours after epidermal application, cell division slowed and at times stopped completely. Twenty-four hours after applying the concentration of the DMAE chemical usually found in anti-wrinkle cosmetics, the fibroblast mortality rate reached over 25%.