Diet pills linked to later eating disorders

Laxatives increase the risk five-fold and diet pills by 80 percent – and researchers are now calling for restrictions on their availability, especially to minors.

The pills are easy to get hold of, either as over-the-counter remedies in pharmacies or online. Instagram recently blocked minors from seeing advertisements for ‘detox’ teas and diet pills.

But researchers from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, who describe their findings as “a wake-up call”, want the ban to go further, and to completely prohibit their sale to young girls.

In a study of more than 10,000 women aged between 14 and 36, the researchers discovered that 1.8 percent of those taking diet pills went on to suffer an eating disorder one to three years later, compared with 1 percent of those who didn’t take the pills. The problem was even worse in those who took laxatives, including detox teas, with 4.2 percent going on to develop an eating disorder, compared to 0.8 percent of those who didn’t take the remedies.

As well as being a ‘gateway’ to eating disorders, the products can also cause hypertension (high blood pressure) and liver and kidney damage.

(Source: American Journal of Public Health, 2019; doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305390)

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