Women who consider themselves “too skinny” brag on social media about the benefits of an antihistamine, which they use to gain weight and increase the size of their butt. However, they ignore the health risks of ingesting the drug.
Self-described “skinny girls” flaunt their discovery on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. They ensure that the medicine allows them to achieve the much-desired “shapes”, that is, buttocks and voluminous breasts.
The medicine they use, Periatin (from Teofarma laboratory), is freely sold for less than R$ 55 a box, in France.
“I, who no longer ate, now I’m hungry all the time, I even eat in bed”, says one of them. “Works great, puts on weight immediately,” she adds.
Images taken before and after taking the drug show spectacular weight gain in a few weeks. However, the drug has cyproheptadine as its active ingredient, recommended for allergic people, and not as a food supplement.
The SEPT (French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics) warned, in a statement, at the end of March about the phenomenon. The “cost-benefit” ratio of cyproheptadine should be reassessed with a view to withdrawing its marketing authorization or, at least, including it on a mandatory prescription list”.
The drug is a “very old drug, marketed in France since the 1960s”, which can be replaced by much more effective drugs and which no longer requires a prescription.
That’s what explains Dr Laurent Chouchana, director responsible for pharmacovigilance of this compound and member of the SFPT.
Until 1994, the drug was used “to stimulate the appetite of patients” who lost weight. However, this indication was withdrawn due to a poorly evaluated cost-benefit ratio, he explains.
Medicines that act on weight are closely monitored for possible misuse, adds Chouchana. For example, the antidiabetic Ozempic, which is used to lose weight.
without going to the doctor
The representatives of the pharmaceutical companies contacted ensure that they only sell “sporadically”.
However, the medicine is available on the internet, where they are often purchased with foods that help to gain weight, such as fenugreek seeds, according to the websites consulted.
The ANSM (French Medicines Agency) is not able to measure “the increase in sales”, but is analyzing the situation, he said.
A year ago, the organization warned health professionals about “inappropriate and potentially dangerous use of cyproheptadine as an orexigenic (appetite stimulant) to induce weight gain for aesthetic purposes”.
A TikTok user recalls that she trusted other Internet users directly. “I didn’t even go see my doctor, I just tried it,” she says.
Taking cyproheptadine poses health risks. The antihistamine causes “drowsiness most of the time”, but also convulsions, hallucinations and “more serious effects such as liver, blood, heart problems”, especially if there is an overdose, as happens when people follow the amounts suggested in the videos of the internet, according to Chouchana.