Medication user: “I feel constantly hungry even though I’m not the type to eat large amounts of food, and I eat even when I’m lying in bed.”
Women who consider themselves “too thin” and dream of having an hourglass-shaped body are praising the benefits of an anti-allergic drug they use to gain weight and enlarge their buttocks, in a popular trend that is dangerous and causes concern in France.
These women call themselves “skinny” via Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and they are obsessed with being huge.
And they seek to achieve their goal with a drug that does not require a prescription and the price of one box does not exceed 10 euros, which is “Periactin” (manufactured by the company “Tiopharma”).
One of these women says: “I feel constant hunger, although I am not the type to consume large amounts of food, and I began to eat even when I am lying in bed,” stressing that “the medicine is very effective and increases weight quickly.”
Pictures taken by the women of themselves before and after using the drug show that they gained extra weight within a few weeks. The problem, however, is that Periactin, of which cyproheptadine is the active ingredient, is not a food supplement but rather a drug for people with allergies.
In a statement issued at the end of March, the French Association of Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics warned of this phenomenon, stressing the need to “re-evaluate the benefits of cyproheptadine in relation to its risks, to see if its marketing authorization should be withdrawn or compulsory to sell it by prescription.”
Laurent Shoshana, responsible for pharmacovigilance associated with cyproheptadine and a member of the French Association of Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics, points out that cyproheptadine is “a very old drug that has been on the French market since the 1960s,” but more effective molecules were created and doctors refrained from prescribing it.
The drug was given until 1994 to “stimulate appetite in patients suffering from anorexia accompanied by weight loss,” but these prescriptions were discontinued due to the fact that its risks outweigh its benefits, according to Shoshana.
Molecules that affect weight are being monitored due to the possibility of misuse, according to Shoshana, similar to the “Ozimbik” drug used to treat diabetes, which is now being used for weight loss.
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Pharmacists’ representatives interviewed by AFP stress that their sales of cyproheptadine are “very rare”, but it is also available online where it is often bought with other products that aid weight gain, such as fenugreek seeds, according to websites seen by AFP.
An official in the French Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products confirms that the agency cannot monitor any “increase in sales”, but it is currently conducting an analysis of the existing situation, and in light of the results it will consider “progressive measures” to stop this phenomenon if necessary.
The French Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products warned health care workers a year ago of “the use of cyproheptadine in a manner that does not comply with its basic objectives and in a potentially dangerous manner, as it is used as an aperitif with the aim of gaining weight for aesthetic purposes.”
Dr. Shoshana’s team is the one who tracked this popular trend, which was also pointed out by a number of netizens. “We discovered people giving prescriptions to look like reality TV star Kim Kardashian, to the point of illegally practicing medicine,” the team members say.
“I trusted girls, took medication, and didn’t even consult a doctor,” says one TikTok user.
Taking cyproheptadine is not without side effects, as this drug causes “almost continuous drowsiness” and some of its users suffer from convulsions and hallucinations, in addition to “more serious effects represented in liver, blood and heart problems in the event of excessive doses taken, which is what the videos advise.” published on social media,” according to Shoshana.
Women who took the drug complain, in videos online, that they have been “sleeping for long periods” because of the periactin, or that they have “stomach pain”.
Cyproheptadine abuse appeared in Africa before it spread through social networks in the early 2000s. And a scientific study conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2011 recorded cases of obesity due to taking this drug, because women who used it became addicted to cyproheptadine.