Women who consider themselves “too skinny” boast on social networks of the benefits of an antihistaminewhich they use for gain weight and increase the size of your buttocksignoring the health risks that its ingestion entails.
The self-styled skinny (“flacas”, in English) boast of their finding on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube and assure that it allows them to achieve the long-awaited “shapes”, that is, voluminous breasts and buttocks.
The medication they use, the Periactin (from the Teofarma laboratory) is freely sold for less than 10 euros a box.
“I, who no longer ate, now i’m hungry all the timeI even eat in my bed”, says one of them. “It works too well. you get fat right away“, Add.
Images taken before and after ingestion of the drug show a spectacular weight gain in a few weeks. But the medicine has as its active principle the cyproheptadineintended for allergy sufferers, and is not a food supplement at all.
The French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT) alerted in a statement at the end of March about the phenomenon. The “benefit/risk ratio of cyproheptadine should be reassessed with a view to withdrawing its marketing authorization or, at least, including it on a mandatory prescription list”.
Cyproheptadine is a “very old drug, marketed in France since the 1960s”, replaced by much more effective molecules and no longer requires a prescription, he explains to AFP the doctor Laurent Chouchanaresponsible for pharmacovigilance of this molecule and member of the SFPT.
Until 1994, the drug was proposed “for stimulate the appetite of the sick” who lost weight. But this indication was withdrawn due, in particular, to a poorly assessed, accurate benefit/risk balance.
Molecules that act on weight are closely monitored for possible misuse, adds Chouchana, such as the antidiabetic Ozempic, which is used to lose weight.
Without going to the doctor
The representatives of the pharmacists, contacted by AFPsay they only sell it “very rarely”, but the drug is available on the internet, where it is often bought with foods that help to gain weight, such as fenugreek seeds, according to the web pages consulted by AFP.
The French Medicines Agency (ANSM) is currently unable to measure “the increase in sales”, but is analyzing the situation, he told AFP.
A year ago, the agency warned health professionals about “a non-compliant and potentially dangerous use of cyproheptadine as an orexigen (appetite stimulant) to induce weight gain for cosmetic purposes”.
A TikTok user remembers that she directly trusted other netizens. “I didn’t even go see my doctor, I tried”account.
Taking cyproheptadine entails health risks. The antihistamine causes “most of the time drowsiness“, but also seizures, hallucinations and “more serious effects such as liver, blood, heart problems”especially if there is an overdose, as happens if the amounts suggested in the videos on the internet are respected, according to Chouchana.
In these recordings, users complain about “sleep all the time” because of Periactin or because of severe stomach pains.
Cyproheptadine abuse emerged in Africa before the advent of social media in the 2000s.
In a scientific study carried out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2011, cases of obesity were reported, in particular because people were becoming addicted to this active substance.
(With information from AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com