Those Natural Weight Loss Supplements You’re Buying Could Be An Illegal (And Potentially Fatal) Drug

Type 'slimming pills' into Google and you'll find no shortage of places to purchase them from Superdrug, Holland and Barrett among them. There are also social media groups, pages and individuals hawking slimming pills; on Instagram the #slimmingpills and #dietpills return tens of thousands of results. Some of these are legal - it goes without saying that anything bought from a recognised high street pharmacy or health shop are going to be approved, but once you get into the marketplace of Amazon, Facebook or Instagram you have no guarantees or protections.

In 2016 the MHRA took down more than 4,000 websites selling fake medicines, up from just under 1,400 websites in 2015. In the same year, more than £13.6m worth of fake medicines were seized in an annual operation organised by Interpol, including three million doses of erectile dysfunction pills and more than 300,000 doses of slimming pills. According to both the UN and WHO fake medicine is a multi-billion-dollar global industry.

Only last week did Goggle Box star Scarlett Moffatt face criticism after The Sun alleged that her recent dramatic weight loss was, in part, down to taking weight loss pills. She says she was forced to take these while at a boot camp in Switzerland - so far, so unrelatable. But here's the thing - it's not just celebrities who are turning to slimming pills in an attempt to lose weight. A recent survey found that one-third of UK dieters have taken slimming pills bought online, the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) are concerned that many of these contain banned and potentially dangerous ingredients.

Annie (not her real name) is 28, nearly 29. She lives with her parents. She is and has always been a size 10/12 weighing around 10 or 11 stone, which considering she is 5ft2 tall, is absolutely healthy. Nothing at all to worry about. 'I've always wanted to lose about 2 stone' she says, 'I don't know why but I've just always wanted to lose that much'. Because of this, she recently turned to slimming pills.

'I bought slimming pills off a lad I went to school with' she tells The Debrief. Does she remember the packaging? Were they branded? 'I'm not sure what they were called' she says 'actually…I don't think they had a name because they came in a little grey pouch and there was no name on it'.

At this time, in her late teens, was Annie doing anything else in her attempts to lose weight? Was she going to the gym? 'I did go to the gym' she recalls 'I'd say around 2 times a week'. The gym wasn't giving Annie the fast results she wanted so, she says, she bought the pills because she 'wanted a quick fix to lose weight'.

What happened after Annie took the pills has put her off ever touching weight loss drugs ever again. 'I think they must have had speed or something in them' she says 'I took one in the morning with water, and then about an hour later I started to sweat really bad, I went grey…I couldn't stop being sick. I was actually at work while this was happening'.

What other physical symptoms did Annie experience? She recalls blurry vision and a feeling of 'tightness' in her head all of which, she says, 'lasted for about four hours'. This resulted in Annie being sent home from her job in retail but, by this point, she was so unwell that she couldn't drive herself home, so her dad had to come and get her.

On reflection, Annie says, she bought the pills because she wanted a 'quick fix so much' but, after taking them and experiencing such a violent reaction she would never do it again. 'I didn't even know what I was taking, it was awful!' she says.

Perhaps more shocking that what Annie experienced is how many people are potentially taking unlicensed and unregulated illegal slimming pills like the ones she bought. While there are no official numbers because the pills are not sold through licensed channels, the amount that have been confiscated by the MHRA in recent years suggests that they are being bought into the country to keep up with demand. In 2015, the MHRA seized 23,000 doses of potentially dangerous slimming pills in Hampshire which, they estimate had a resale value of £30,000. In 2016, they seized a similar number of similar pills in the Manchester area and in 2017 a couple from Manchester, James Donegan and Melissa Donegan, were sentenced to prison time after pills were seized at their home in Liverpool.

Similarly, 28-year-old Jessica bought slimming pills after seeing adverts on Facebook and Instagram. 'I don't remember what they were called…I don't think they had a name, but they came in a green packet' she says, 'I think you were supposed to take one or two a day, after a meal or before a meal…I can't quite remember'. She took the pills 'for a few weeks' and during that time she experienced serious side effects. 'I'd get really hot at my desk at work…then I'd feel really dizzy and I remember one time I nearly fainted when I got up to go to the toilet, so I had to sit down and get a glass of water' she remembers.

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Jessica didn't immediately connect the slimming pills to her symptoms. 'I didn't make the correlation until a few weeks in and then I stopped taking them' she says, 'it was a horrible feeling, feverish almost and to be honest I didn't even notice a difference in my weight'.

When I ask Annie why she not only bought but took unlabelled pills which she must have known, on some level, could have been potentially harmful to her she simply says, 'I just wasn't comfortable in my body…in how I looked'. She reflects that society 'does 100%' put too much emphasis on we look and that she felt under pressure to look a certain way. Like her, Jessica wanted to change her appearance. 'I used to have a PT' she tells me 'and he would measure the fat percentage of my body and I though "oh well if this is an extra helping hand and it works while I'm going to the gym then great".'

I ask Jessica how much weight she was trying to lose? 'Well' she says, 'it's not like I was a size 25 trying to get to a size 8…I'm an 8/10 and I just thought it would give me an extra boost'. There was definitely a pressure to be even slimmer, Jessica says - 'you scroll through Instagram and all these models with crazy body proportions are there…I go to the gym two or three times a week and I'd have to work really hard to look like that…to have that physique that they're promoting…and even then maybe I'd never look like that, but they make it look so easy'. The slimming pills, she says, didn't really seem any different to the 'skinny teas' and 'detox teas' promoted by the likes of the Kardashians.

It's this - the desire to change ourselves, to be thinner, to keep shrinking our bodies - that fuels demand for slimming pills. This is big business, the Donegans were found by the MHRA to have made more than £215,000 from the sale of illegal slimming pills. Kate (also not her real name) is 29 and a size 8. She has two children and works out regularly but, she says, 'the results weren't enough'. She bought what she knew were illegal 'weight loss boosters' aka slimming pills from someone at her gym to try and speed things up. 'I knew they weren't strictly legal' she tells me 'but I didn't realise they could cause serious problems'.

The problem is that those, like Annie, who are driven to purchase slimming pills either don't know what they're putting into their bodies, don't care or, perhaps worst of all, think they know but, in reality, what they're taking is something else entirely. Danny Lee-Frost is the MHRA's Head of Operations for Enforcement, he's seized a lot of illegal slimming pills in his time. The most worrying thing he's seen, he says, is a now banned chemical called sibutramine in pills which are labelled as 'herbal' or 'natural'.

Sibutramine was a licensed weight loss medicine which went by the name of Reductil until 2010. It was withdrawn from markets across Europe and the United States because it was found that there was an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes associated with taking it.

Danny says the sale of illegal slimming pills is a 'priority' for the MHRA's fake medicines enforcement team because of the 'worrying nature' of what they've found in seized tablets. Danny says he's seen loads of pills 'advertised as natural, safe and herbal' which actually contain sibutramine. In particular, he says, two prevalent slimming products are commonly seized by his team, they go by the name of Li Da Dai Dai Huaand Aduki Diet Capsules. Both of these products can be found on seemingly legitimate websites which bill them as 'natural' and 'healthy' ways to lose weight. The Aduki capsules are even advertised online as part of what sounds like another wellness fad diet 'The Aduki Diet' but, Danny says, seized samples of them have been found to contain high levels of sibutramine.

I ask Danny what shocks him the most. He says it's 'the sheer amount of active ingredient' he's seen. 'That' he says 'is the most shocking thing. Sibutramine was removed from the market but we've found tablets that contain 2,3 even 4 times as much sibutramine as was in the licensed version'. This not only means that if you accidentally end up buying a tablet containing sibutramine you could be taking an extremely high dose of a now banned medicine but more than was recommended to take even when it was legal.

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The ease with which we can shop online has definitely fuelled this problem, Danny says. After all, weight loss aides, supplements and slightly dodgy slimming pills aren't entirely a new phenomenon. 'People are ordering them online' Danny says, 'via Amazon, Ebay and Facebook and sometimes they might not realise they're buying a banned medicine'. Sometimes, Danny says, the pills come direct from China or India but they're also likely to come from 'someone's front room' here in the UK. Indeed, James and Melissa Donegan had ordered their unlicensed slimming pills from Hong Kong and declared them as vitamins at customs with the intention of selling them on here themselves.

The problem, Danny says, is that 'you can still buy sibutramine as an active ingredient in the Far East, that's where all of the products we've found that contain it have come from. The pills that say they're natural but actually contain it are coming out of India.

Annie, Jessica and Kate all say that they are embarrassed to talk about their desire to lose weight. It's because of this that they don't want me to use their real names in this article. We shame people for being overweight, that same stigma and shame is what made them vulnerable to illegal and potentially harmful slimming pills as they look for a quick fix or silver bullet that will help them conform to unrealistic beauty and fitness standards.

This search for perfection can not only lead to short-term but also long-term and, even, fatal health problems. In 2017, Bethany Shipsey died in A&E at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital after taking slimming pills.

'Looking back, Jessica says, it's scary because I didn't know what was in them I just bought them blindly - it was so accessible, I could have ben 12 or 13'. For her, taking pills to help weight loss was definitely normalised by social media - 'the pills and the teas make you think you can just take something to have the perfect hair or the perfect body' she says. Now she 'doesn't see how anyone gets those dimensions unless they're in the gym all the time or using Photoshop'.

Both Annie and Jessica say that they would never touch slimming pills again. Kate, however, still uses legal fat burners and, occasionally, illegal weight loss aides to 'keep in shape' as she puts it.

'I've got three younger sisters' Jessica says finally 'and, I just think…if I'm influenced by Instagram and Facebook and the models on there then they are but times 20. I think it's really dangerous to be a girl online now. I wouldn't put myself in that situation again, but I worry other girls would…a girl at work didn't listen to my warnings and took slimming pills after I did…and she ended up in hospital!'

If you are experiencing health problems related to slimming or diet pills, see your GP immediately

If you are struggling with an eating disorder contact BEAT's helpline for support

Follow Vicky on Twitter@Victoria_Spratt

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.