They dream of an hourglass-shaped body: on social networks, women who find themselves “too thin” extol the merits of an antiallergic drug that they hijack to quickly gain weight and especially “buttocks”, a dangerous fashion which is causing concern in France.
On Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, they call themselves “the skinny” (“the thin”, in English). These young women have an obsession: to have “curves”, that is to say buttocks and voluminous breasts.
A goal that they achieve by means of an over-the-counter drug at less than 10 euros a box, and which they do without the name: Periactin (from the Teofarma laboratory). “I who no longer ate, I’m always hungry, even in my bed I eat”, testifies one of them. “It works too well, it makes you fat right away”.
The before/after photos attest to spectacular weight gains in just a few weeks. Problem: Periactin (which has cyproheptadine as its active ingredient) is not a food supplement, but a medicine for allergy sufferers.
In a press release at the end of March, the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT) warned of this phenomenon, considering that “the benefit/risk ratio of cyproheptadine should be reassessed with a view to withdrawing its marketing authorization or minimum of its inclusion on a mandatory prescription list”.
Cyproheptadine is a “very old drug, marketed in France since the 1960s”, which has been overtaken by much more efficient molecules and is no longer prescribed”, explains to AFP Dr Laurent Chouchana, head of pharmacovigilance. of this molecule and member of the SFPT.
Until 1994, the drug was indicated “for the stimulation of appetite in patients with a decrease in appetite accompanied by weight loss”, an indication withdrawn due in particular to a poorly assessed benefit/risk balance. , he says.
Molecules that act on weight are particularly monitored for their potential misuse, adds Dr. Chouchana, like the antidiabetic Ozempic, used for slimming purposes.
Representatives of pharmacists, interviewed by AFP, claim to sell it only “very rarely”, but it is also available online where its purchase is often coupled with other aids to weight gain, such as seeds of fenugreek according to the sites consulted by AFP.
The Medicines Agency (ANSM) is not in a position to measure an “increase in sales”, she told AFP, but is currently carrying out an analysis of the situation, based on which it will consider “graduated actions” to stem the phenomenon if necessary.
A year earlier already, the ANSM had alerted health professionals to “non-compliant and potentially dangerous use of cyproheptadine as an orexigenic (likely to increase appetite) to induce weight gain for aesthetic purposes”.
It was Dr Chouchana’s team who brought up this trend, itself alerted by Internet users: “We discovered sorcerer’s apprentices who were making incredible medical prescriptions, in order to look like (the reality TV star) Kim Kardashian, bordering on the illegal practice of medicine”.
A tiktokeuse says: “I trusted the girls, I didn’t even go to see my doctor, I tried it”.
Taking cyproheptadine is not without consequences: it causes “most of the time drowsiness”, but also sometimes convulsions, hallucinations and “more serious effects such as liver, blood, heart problems, especially if there is has overdose, which is the case based on the doses proposed in the videos on the internet”, according to Dr Chouchana.
In online videos, users complain of “sleeping all the time” because of Periactin or of having “very bad stomach”.
The misuse of cyproheptadine appeared in Africa before the advent of social networks, in the 2000s. In a scientific study carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2011, cases of obesity were observed, in particular because people became dependent to cyproheptadine.