Story #1. DBS Laboratories, LLC

DBS Laboratories, LLC, sometimes known simply as DBS Labs, seems to have been formed early in the millennium. The owner was Jonathan Barash. Although best known for Pedia Loss (a nutritional supplement for overweight children) and Fabulously Feminine (a product claiming to enhance female desire), DBS Labs also toyed with stress relief products such as vitamins and herbs.

In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission began investigating the advertising practices of DBS Labs. They found no evidence that either of DBS Labs’ most famous products worked as promised. In November of 2004, the Federal Trade Commission issued an order that effectively prevented DBS Labs from advertising Pedia Loss, Fabulously Feminine, or any other product unless they possessed hard scientific evidence that it actually worked as advertised. This order would have included DBS Labs’ stress relief drugs.

In a response to the FTC order, Vineet Chhabra whose businesses were also implicated in the scandal, asserted through his attorney that to the best of his knowledge “[DBS Labs] is now defunct.” Indeed, their website is dead, and although some of their products continue to appear occasionally on auction sites, the Federal Trade Commission clearly dealt a mortal blow to DBS Labs and any stress relief medications they might have offered.

Story #2: DBS (Delivering Better Service) Labs and Urinary Neurotransmitter Testing

Anyone who has studied the psychology of depression and anxiety knows that the most commonly blamed culprit is an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are the brain’s messengers. In theory, people who are anxious and depressed have fewer of the crucial neurotransmitters that carry signals of pleasure. Anti-depressants attempt to increase the available amount of neurotransmitters.

Although sophisticated scans can determine how the brain responds to a given stimuli, there is no way to actually measure the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Thus, the only way to tell if antidepressants are working is to see if the patient’s mood improves.

DBS Labs, working in partnership with NeuroResearch, a company that advocates the use of amino acids to treat depression and anxiety, profess to think differently. They assert that after treatment has started, they can measure crucial neurotransmitter levels in the patient’s urine.

NeuroResearch supports treatment with amino acids for what they call “neurotransmitter dysfunction disease” which includes conditions like attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety, and even obesity. DBS Labs assist with stress relief by testing the neurotransmitters in the urine of people whose symptoms do not appear to be responding to amino acid treatment. Although there is no evidence that DBS Labs or its partner NeuroResearch has been investigated by the FTC, the sites of both entities are full of disclaimers about the value of urine neurotransmitter testing, pointing out that it is appropriate in only a small number of cases.

With so little scientific information available, it remains to be seen what role amino acids, urinary neurotransmitter testing, and DBS Labs will ultimately play in stress relief.