The diet pill hit the market a year ago but got a big boost in late December when U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it would ban sales of ephedra, an amphetamine-like herb blamed for 155 deaths including that of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler last year.

The FDA’s ban, the first against a dietary supplement, took effect Monday when a federal judge in New Jersey allowed a nationwide ban on dietary supplements containing ephedra.

Sales of Zantrex-3, already one of the most popular weight-loss supplements, increased 1 1/2 times since December, said Don Atkinson, vice president of sales for Basic Research, the parent company of Zoller Labs, a name used to market the herbal remedy.

Atkinson wouldn’t provide any other figures, but on its Web site the company says 300,000 bottles of Zantrex-3 were sold in the first 30 days it was available at retail stores.

“We have retailers across the country wanting our product. This is a manufacturer’s dream,” Atkinson said Monday during a telephone interview from the Basic Research headquarters near the Salt Lake airport.

The number of retail outlets carrying Zantrex-3 has risen by 40 percent since December, he said. Among other places, it can be found at 4,000 Wal-Mart stores.

While advertised as a product of Zoller Labs, Zantrex-3 is actually made by a “contract manufacturer,” Cornerstone Nutritional Labs in Farmington.

That company is under separate ownership from Basic Research.

And Zantrex-3 is just a name picked for its marketing cachet — there was no Zantrex-1 or Zantrex-2, company officials said.

At one upscale retailer Atkinson wouldn’t identify, a customer survey found 60 percent of first-time Zantrex buyers came back to buy more of the pills, which cost about $50 for a month’s supply.

“Here’s a product that gives people what they want — weight loss and the energy,” he said.

It contains a blend of three South American herbs — guarana, yerba mate and damiana — with a hefty dose of caffeine and some green tea that gives it the “kick” the company says customers want and which was lacking in ephedra.

Each pill contains the caffeine equal to three or four cups of strong coffee but without the jitters, says Dan Mowry, director of scientific affairs at Basic and one of its owners.

A proprietary blend of the herbs “produces a feeling of fullness,” he said.

Mowry suspects Zantrex-3 suppresses a hormone produced in the stomach that triggers the feeling of hunger — a hypothesis he says he has yet to prove.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.