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It's because weight loss pills tend to rely on the appetite suppressing effects of stimulants. Often, the compounds are intentionally chosen because they behave

by cc-d 8y ago

It's because weight loss pills tend to rely on the appetite suppressing effects of stimulants. Often, the compounds are intentionally chosen because they behave near identically pharmacologically to traditional stimulants. As such, they carry similar cardiac risks, if not significantly more because unlike traditional stimulants, the "diet pill/supplement" market is completely unregulated. This compounds the issue, because any vendor can provide incorrect dosage amounts, and also because people tend to treat 'unregulated diet pills' less seriously than say, methamphetamine. A good example of this is Ephedrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedrine It was widely used in 'weight loss' pills up until 2004, whenever it was restricted due to a combination of it's chemical similarity to amphetamine/methamphetamine (allowing for easy clandestine synthesis of more powerful psychoactive compounds), and people dying because they didn't realize they were taking completely unregulated substances on par in seriousness with other, culturally/politically demonized stimulants. If one were to compare the 2d structures of both ephedrine and amphetamine/methamphetamine, even with no chemistry knowledge, one can see how similar these molecules actually are. Not to imply that molecular similarity necessarily always leads to similar pharmacological effects, but in this case it certainly does.

meowface 8y ago
While using it for weight loss does sound unnecessarily dangerous, how risky is it really, comparatively? High daily doses of amphetamine are still regularly prescriped to young children.
- cc-d 8y ago
  The dangers of Ephedrine are benign when used correctly (oral, low dose amounts), as is both amphetamine and methamphetamine (the United States gives meth to kids for ADHD, there's a reason it's schedule 2). Even what one might call a 'high dose' (but still under the prescribing guidelines max limit) of prescribed amphetamine is still rather benign, unless one has a pre-existing condition which increases the risk of adverse health effects.

by cc-d 8y ago

meowface 8y ago

While using it for weight loss does sound unnecessarily dangerous, how risky is it really, comparatively? High daily doses of amphetamine are still regularly prescriped to young children.

cc-d 8y ago
The dangers of Ephedrine are benign when used correctly (oral, low dose amounts), as is both amphetamine and methamphetamine (the United States gives meth to kids for ADHD, there's a reason it's schedule 2). Even what one might call a 'high dose' (but still under the prescribing guidelines max limit) of prescribed amphetamine is still rather benign, unless one has a pre-existing condition which increases the risk of adverse health effects.