Influencers highlight the merits of an antiallergic drug available over the counter, normally intended for people with allergies.
Cyproheptadine, sold among others under the brand name Periactinis an antihistamine whose diversion worries specialists.
On social networks, it is not this benefit that is put forward but that of rapid weight gain, and especially “buttocks”. Only, this diversion is far from being devoid of risks.
The obsession with “forms”
A box of this drug normally intended for allergy sufferers costs less than ten euros, and its accessibility is all the more important since it is no longer prescribed and is available over the counter.
One of the young women present on social networks testifies:
Me who no longer ate, I’m always hungry, even in my bed I eat (…) It works too well, it makes you fat right away.
A benefit/risk ratio to be reassessed
Even if some of them can also be dangerous, cyproheptadine is therefore not a food supplement but a drug.
At the end of March, the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT) warned about this use, indicating that “the benefit/risk ratio of cyproheptadine should be reassessed with a view to withdrawing its marketing authorization or at least its inclusion on a mandatory prescription list”.
ANSM assesses the situation
To AFP, the Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) confides that it cannot measure“sales increase” but indicates to analyze the situation, before possibly initiating “graduated actions” to curb the trend.
Dr. Laurent Chouchana, in charge of the pharmacovigilance of this molecule and member of the SFPT, further says: “We discovered sorcerer’s apprentices who made incredible medical prescriptions, in order to look like Kim Kardashian, bordering on the illegal practice of medicine”.
The specialist specifies the risks incurred by taking this molecule. If it is originally“mostly sleepy”it can also be convulsions, hallucinations and “more serious effects such as liver, blood, heart problems, especially if there is an overdose, which is the case based on the doses proposed in the videos on the Internet”.