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Chinese Diet Pills: Deadly to Health?

A lot of people think that anything that says you can lose weight with their product is the truth, especially with Chinese Diet Pills as they are so cheap.

Bowl with drugs and chopsticks

The reality is that they can be extremely dangerous to your health and may not be worth the money you spend on them.

Read on to find out more on why you should avoid them completely.

What are Chinese Diet Pills?

They claim to help you create amazing weight loss results with a combination of ‘exotic’ ingredients, which is what makes them appealing to the public. You can buy them from online retailers, but you won’t find them in any high street stores because they are not based in the UK or US, like they’re trying to make you think. It’s sneaky but clever.

There is very little possibility that the tablets will actually work as a lot of the ones being sold are fake or contain ingredients that are damaging to the body, making them not as natural as they claim. They do this by using fillers and harmful chemicals which in turn cause some terrible side effects.

Why are they so dangerous?

The number one reason as to why they are so dangerous is that you never really know what you’re taking. They are produced outside of the regulations in China, meaning that some of the ingredients could very well be illegal. It doesn’t sound promising, does it?

Now there are more companies than ever producing these pills on a daily basis, lying to potential customers just to get your money. As a result of this, and not knowing what’s in them, the Chinese Government decided to introduce the ‘Blue Hat’ Scheme.

The Health Food Administration Regulations began the registration process known as the ‘blue hat’ registration. The ‘blue hat’ is the nickname for the small blue logo a product receives after being successfully registered. This registration gave dietary supplements limited advertising rights, potency restrictions and limited functional claims that could be made after going through a lengthy and costly registration process

Source: http://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/contents/view_columns/2009-10-01/inside-china-exploring-supplement-sales-channels/

Any supplement that doesn’t have a ‘blue hat’ label is illegal to produce and sell, meaning that many manufacturers had to go underground and under the radar to produce the pills that some people are buying.

Why are they so popular?

There is one simple reason as to why they are popular. They’re dead cheap. Going at about $20 for a months supply they are by far the cheapest on the market.

The thing that is worrying is that people don’t seem to care what’s actually in the diet pills, as long as they are seeing results then it doesn’t matter. Sasha Fernadez lost 4 pounds in one week and claimed that she didn’t care that the Chinese pills weren’t as organic or herbal as they claimed. Another woman called Jessica said that the tablets “worry me, but I ignore it. I have no idea what is in them.” It doesn’t instil a lot of confidence in the products.

What is wrong with the Diet Pills themselves?

Old fashioned poison bottle.

The first thing that gives off warning signs regarding a lot of Chinese diet pills is what’s in them. One of the main ingredients is Sibutramine, which is not allowed within the UK as it is claimed to raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Originally the substance was used along with diet and exercise to help treat obesity in the US.

Not only this but the conditions in which the pills are being created are definitely not up to the standard they should be. Danny Lee-Frost, head of enforcement operations at the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said this:

In the past, we have raided places where different chemicals were being mixed up in cement misers, with the stuff on the floor being swept up and shoveled back in. They just don’t care.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2639089/Heart-attacks-Strokes-Mental-breakdown-women-risking-health-illegal-diet-drugs-The-online-slimming-pills-send-psychotic.html

Why on earth you would want to buy these kind of tablets in the first place is unknown, but this fact should make you stay a million miles away. Not only this, but some of the other ingredients that are included in the pills are mercury, lead and arsenic. Extremely dangerous ingredients that shouldn’t be ingested.

What can happen if you take them?

There are quite a number of horror stories out there regarding the tablets. People who take these tablets experience an array of side effects ranging from raised blood pressure and pulse rate, irritability, insomnia, nausea, dizziness, constipation and paranoia.

An 18-year-old girl from Ireland purchased a product called Meizitang Soft Gel and was rushed to hospital with abdominal pains and bloody diarrhea after only five days of taking the drug. As a result she had to have her colon removed after being diagnosed with Acute Ischaemic Solitis. This is a tame story compared to some others.

28-year-old Lilla Goatcher was prescribed the drug Sibutramine after she was unable to lose weight with other means such as Weight Watchers and Slimming World. Once she started taking the tablets she realized she had a racing heart which she described as having ‘drunk far too much coffee’. It was closely followed with insomnia and stomach pains, which she described as ‘excruciating’. Once she realized that the products had been banned in the UK in 2010 she quickly threw away the rest of the tablets.

One of the more disturbing stories we came across was that of 31-year-old Samantha Nritsou who bought her slimming pills from eBay. What she says is very concerning:

I was full of excess energy. I began to feel constantly agitated, too, I kept sapping at my family an I couldn’t sleep.

Not only this, but following her continued use of the diet pills she began to feel paranoid and suffered from a breakdown.

At the hospital I totally freaked out. I was screaming and running around the wards where patients where sleeping…I developed paranoid psychosis just so I could get a flat stomach.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2639089/Heart-attacks-Strokes-Mental-breakdown-women-risking-health-illegal-diet-drugs-The-online-slimming-pills-send-psychotic.html

Doctors discovered that the slimming pills she was taking contained Ephedra, which they linked to the cause of her breakdown.

It seems to us that the risks do not outweigh the benefits of taking Chinese diet pills, even if they do cause you to lose weight. It’s just too scary to think that any of these things or worse could happen if you take a product with unknown ingredients in it.

How is it being stopped

Recently authorities are starting to crack down on finding out where these tablets are being sold and by whom. It isn’t always possible to trace them as some slip through customs, putting consumers at risk.

Towards the end of June this year police seized pills from a cottage in Wadhurst, Sussex, that were thought to be worth around £40,000. The raid was a part of a global crackdown on the illegal pills being sold. The pills, called Lida Daidaihua, contained the dangerous sibutramine and were imported from China and sent to cutomers via the local post office.

All over the world £51.6 millions worth of the illegal products from 115 countries were seized during June. It’s definitely reassuring to see that people are now doing something about this and letting it be known that the products aren’t safe.

Warnings to anyone looking at them

Caution side effects

Here is a list of the most dangerous diet pill ingredients to look out for:

  • Dinitrophenol (DNP): is a known chemical pesticide that causes severe side effects. Personal tolerance for this ingredient varies greatly, which is why overdoses can happen and lead to hyperthermia, causing the body temperature to rise up to 44 °C (111 °F).
  • Sibutramine: is formed by a mixture of harmful ingredients which cause side effects such as seizures, strokes, nausea and increased heart rate. Is now banned due to leading to cardiovascular problems.
  • Ephedrine: it stimulates the metabolism rate to increase weight loss but causes side effects similar to Sibutramine. You can buy this product without prescription, which allows a lot of people to use it.
  • Herbal Xenicol: this isn’t as natural and they would have you believe, often including several pharmaceutical additives and chemicals which cause insomnia, palpitations and abdominal pain.
  • Phentermine: is an appetite suppressant that can lead to side effects such as high blood pressure due to adrenaline rush, nausea and abdominal pains. It was recently banned by the FDA but you can still purchase the product in the UK.

After looking at all the facts surrounding these Chinese diet pills it’s safe to say that it isn’t worth the risks to lose a few pounds when you could get the same results attending the gym.

It is in your best interest that you do not attempt to try these diet pills as you do knot know the effect they will have on your body. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

Disclaimer: Our reviews and investigations are based on extensive research from the information publicly available to us and consumers at the time of first publishing the post. Information is based on our personal opinion and whilst we endeavour to ensure information is up-to-date, manufacturers do from time to time change their products and future research may disagree with our findings. If you feel any of the information is inaccurate, please contact us and we will review the information provided.


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