2024-06-27 04:01:00
“After gaining 9 kg in a single month, thanks Periactin! » On TikTok, a younger lady reveals her beneficiant curves to her 31,000 subscribers whereas whistling. In passing, she promotes this anti-allergic medicine, which is obtainable in pharmacies or on the Web and is usually used to achieve weight and “develop the butt”.
The purpose, touted with quite a lot of “tales”? Appear to be the American star Kim Kardashian or the French influencer Maeva Ghennam, for instance. “Harmful misuse”, which the Nationwide Company for the Security of Medicines (ANSM) provides to stop the sale of anti-allergic over-the-counter, she introduced this Thursday, June 27. From July 10, a prescription will probably be required to acquire Periactin, primarily based on the molecule cyproheptadine.
“This choice goes in the proper path”
Supposed to deal with allergic signs, equivalent to rhinitis, conjunctivitis or hives, the medicine can be identified to extend urge for food … and subsequently, trigger weight achieve. However like all others, it may well trigger negative effects equivalent to drowsiness, palpitations, and even imaginative and prescient issues. And this, particularly amongst younger girls who wish to enhance their form and entice social networks with out the slightest medical recommendation.
“This choice goes in the proper path! » solutions Dr. Laurent Chouchana, head of the pharmacovigilance middle in Paris and member of the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT). “We raised the alarm in 2022 by noticing an actual recipe for weight achieve on social networks, then we relaunched in 2023 to say that we needed to a minimum of re-evaluate the profit/danger stability of this medication, ” he says.
Preliminary “consciousness” measures had been taken in 2022, however this was not sufficient to cease abuse. “We depend on suggestions from pharmacovigilance facilities, what we see on social networks, and so forth. », explains Dr. Isabelle Yoldjian, medical director of the ANSM. Final December, a 13-year-old woman suffered extreme palpitations attributable to an overdose of Periactin, swallowed her “swell” her figures.
An rising development in Africa
Till 1994, this therapy was formally indicated to extend urge for food in folks reducing weight. The profit/danger stability was then thought of inadequate however the abuse, which first appeared in African international locations, step by step unfold to Europe, and particularly in France. In Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), in accordance with a examine revealed in 2016, 70% of Periactin doses had been aimed toward weight achieve. “It was primarily utilized by the younger feminine inhabitants for lengthy durations (greater than a yr),” the SFPT famous.
Even to battle allergy symptoms, there are different drugs at the moment which can be significantly better tolerated and simpler than Periactin. The variety of packing containers delivered to pharmacies every year continues to lower: 281,000 in 2021, then 197,000 in 2022 and 185,000 final yr. However Web gross sales are unattainable to quantify.
Different therapies, such because the antidiabetic Ozempic, are abused to… drop some weight. “They’re two sides of the identical coin,” factors out Laurent Chouchana. And Isabelle Yoldjian concludes: “We’re in the identical battle: the battle in opposition to the usage of medication for aesthetic functions. As soon as you permit the medical area, it may well develop into extraordinarily harmful. »
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