Warning issued over effects of diet pills
Some drugs strictly controlled by the government are showed. Phentermine (third left) is one of the main ingredients in DC diet pills.
Did you think that diet pills from abroad could help you lose weight? They could be illegal drugs.
Although the number of cases related to well-known drugs, such as marijuana and heroin, is in declined this year, there has been an increase in cases related to selling and taking illegal psychotropic substances since 2018, the city’s anti-drug commission said on Monday.
Illegal psychotropic substances include some diet pills, sleeping pills and smart drugs. Among those, the percentage of cases involving in diet pills accounts for 85 percent (over 200 cases), the commission said.
The diet pills mainly contained amfepramone and phentermine, which can . help control the appetite by making people feel full. But they have severe side-effects such as overexciteness, insomnia and even psychological disorder, according to the commission. To avoid those effects, the pills may also include diazepam, nitrazepam and flunitrazepam, drugs which have hypnotic, sedative and anti-anxiety effects and are also added in sleeping pills.
Smart drugs, which have been bought by parents for their children in recent years because of claims it will make them smarter, contain modafinil and ritalin, which can excite the nerves and are often used in narcolepsy and respiratory depression.
All of these ingredients are strictly controlled by the government. And the ingredients in diet pills can be addictive so those pills are new types of drugs, said Tong Ming, deputy director of the narcotics division of Shanghai Public Security Bureau.
The most famous illegal diet pill is Dermcare Clinic diet pill, or DC diet pill, imported from Thailand.
“The effect of the drug on weight loss may be not obvious according to different people. And It was accompanied by strong unpleasant side effects,” said Li Ling, head of Tongren Hospital’s pharmacy department
She said a doctor will consider the positive and negative effects when they prescribe medication because every medicine has side effects but they would not let patients take such dangerous things as DC diet pills.
Li Jian, director of the commission, said the DC diet pill is just a name so many unscrupulous traders were likely to change the name to keep selling it and escape punishment. He stressed that buyers should know what is contained in the things they are buying.
Tong said some people taking and selling diet pills had been caught by the police and further investigations are underway.
