Amphetamine-based diet pills ensure you’ll lose more than just weight

January 26, 11:25 AMScience News ExaminerMeg Marquardt

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Looking to lose a little weight this New Year? Well, despite how attractive some diet pills may sound, you may want to steer clear of certain pills from South America.  Besides being illegal and banned by the FDA, the drug known as fenproporex also happens to be an amphetamine.  So while it may help you drop some pounds, it will also put at a high risk for health problems as well as making it impossible for you to pass drug screens and so may cost you your job.

The main threat of these drugs in the United States is that most physicians are not aware of the pills—or at least are unaware of their prevalence.  Though banned in the US, there is the simple truth that you can buy anything on the Internet, and therefore the drugs have found their way to the US (underground) market.  But if patients don’t inform their doctor that they are using the diet pills, there arises a two-fold threat.  First, a doctor may prescribe a medication that can be deadly if mixed with amphetamines.  It also makes the dangerous symptoms caused by fenproporex very difficult to diagnose.

Fenpropex is the “second most often prescribed amphetamine-based appetite suppressant worldwide” [Springer] Once taken, fenproporex rapidly become an amphetamine in the body.  Amphetamines have been used historically militaries and athletes alike, for it can increase concentration and intensity of thought and movement.  Fenproporex is highly beneficial for weight loss, as amphetamines are known to reduce weight.  However, that’s pretty much the only beneficial side effect.  Amphetamines also cause a series of heart problems ranging from high blood pressure to palpitations as well as inducing some neurological symptoms such as extreme headache and slurred speech.

Dr Pieter Cohen from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance in the US and Harvard Medical School recently published a study in Journal of General Internal Medicine in order to bring to light the dangers of these diet pills so that more physicians are made aware of their existence.  He did several studies involving people taking fenproporex that had been illegally imported from Brazil.  In one case “a 38 year-old man tested positive for amphetamines after an occupational urine screening test and was suspended from work. Both fenproporex and fluoxetine (drugs in these diet pills are often mixed together) were detected in his imported pills. While he was taking the pills he also experienced insomnia and palpitations, symptoms which disappeared after he stopped taking the pills.” [Springer]

The study goes on to state that “in both cases, not all the substances detected in the pills matched the ingredients on the vial labels.” [Springer]  This makes the story even scarier, for even if you were to tell your doctor about taking fenproporex, it may still take quite some time for him to discover all the drugs you are truly ingesting.  

Moral of this story: definitely stay away from the illegal diet pills, especially ones that are amphetamine-based.  And at the end of the day, scientific study has shown numerous times that the best way to lose weight will always be diet and exercise, and to leave the diet pills on the shelf.