A world-class triathlete is suing a North Texas supplement maker after testing positive for a banned substance and being stripped of her Ironman title.

Lauren Barnett says that a product made by Farmers Branch-based Classified Nutrition contains ostarine, a drug that helps build muscle, even though that drug wasn't on the label.

The drug is banned by the three major anti-doping organizations that oversee Olympic sports.

Barnett bought Classified Nutrition’s Neurolytes capsules in 2015 and took one before running a July 2016 Ironman competition in Racine, Wis. After she won the race, she tested positive for ostarine in a random drug test. In a lawsuit filed Monday, Barnett, a former Dallas resident, claims that her use of Neurolytes ultimately was responsible for the failed drug test.

Three separate drug-testing laboratory results later confirmed that the product — which Barnett had purchased at a store in Plano and cleared with her trainer before using — contained concentrations of the ostarine at about 150 nanograms per capsule, according to the lawsuit filed Dec. 4 in Dallas County court.

Company profile

Ostarine is an investigational therapy that is being tested as a treatment for patients who suffer from muscle wasting disease, but it's not yet approved for human use in any country, according to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which added Classified Nutrition to its high-risk supplement maker list in April.

Classified Nutrition said Tuesday that it has no comment on the lawsuit and declined to state whether it still produces and sells the product. However, Neurolytes is not currently listed on its website.

The company, which operates on Neutron Road in Farmers Branch, was registered with the Texas secretary of state as a limited liability corporation in January 2015. "After a year of studying the science, having all-star chemists create the formulas, and testing products with dedicated athletes, Classified Nutrition launched into the supplement market," the company says on its website.

It says it uses the highest quality materials with no fillers, adding that “you will not find a list of twenty ingredients on our labels (many of which have no training benefit whatsoever). Usually it will be only 3 or 4.” Founders Jeff Randol and Kevin Kuhn described themselves on the website as in “training to become superheroes. Well, super-athletes. Okay, better athletes.”

Neurolytes was marketed as a supplement to help promote hydration and focus and to prevent muscle cramps and fatigue in athletes, the lawsuit said. Tri Shop, the retail store where Barnett purchased the product in 2015, told The Dallas Morning News that it no longer carries the product but did not say why.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said in a warning earlier this year that Classified Nutrition was added to its high-risk list, along with two other companies, due to “numerous recent positive anti-doping tests.”

The products are marketed as vitamins and electrolyte supplements “but contain dangerous and prohibited anabolic agents” and their safety and label accuracy are evaluated only post-market, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency website says. The agency declined Tuesday to provide a specific number for the complaints.

In a statement it said that products marketed as dietary supplements are added to its high-risk list if they contain or are advertised to contain substances on the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List, or if a sport arbitration panel or other committee has determined the product led to a positive test result.

Lingering effects

Barnett, who now lives in Kansas City, became a professional competitor in 2014 after winning eight triathlons in 2012 and 2013 and going undefeated for a full year, according to a Lubbock-Avalanche Journal story in 2015.

Her website lists more than 20 competitions and 15 sponsors. Last year, she won the Ironman Racine competition, but after the random drug test, those results were disqualified and she was suspended from participating for six months, according to the lawsuit.

Last fall, she arranged to have the opened bottle of Neurolytes that she used the morning of the competition sent to a lab to be tested. That lab found ostarine present in levels consistent with her post-race urine sample, the documents state. The World Triathlon Corporation then requested that the Sports Medicine Research and Testing lab in Salt Lake City also test the bottle. That lab found the drug in the original bottle used by Barnett as well as in a separate, sealed bottle that was acquired by the lab.

Barnett is suing for negligence, claiming that the incident resulted in a loss of income from triathlon-related sponsorships and endorsements and that it has “permanently tarnished” her reputation.