Medicine, Fitness, Food, Emotional Health
Keep up to date with the latest developments
Subscribe today
12 issues
for only 33.95
£
+ FREE 24 Hour Legal Helpline
Find out more
Health
Fake slimming pills web sales warning
Beware of buying fake slimming pills over the net when you want to shed the extra pounds piled on over Christmas, warns Judy Hobson
The unsrupulous people offering you a quick fix for your weight problem are not interested in helping you to get rid of the extra pounds of fat from your body, but have their eyes firmly fixed on removing the pounds from your bank account.
Between 2013 and 2014, the government’s health watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), seized 425,663 fake or unlicensed slimming pills, and between 2015 and October 2016 it had seized 544,689 and was still counting.
It has also closed down more than 5000 websites operating illegally and removed 320 videos from YouTube which criminals are also starting to use to sell their illegal wares.
Selling dodgy diet pills and unlicensed medicines via the internet is a lucrative business. In a crackdown on the illegal trade co-ordinated by Interpol and involving 115 countries last summer, £15.8m-worth of counterfeit and unlicensed medicines and devices were seized in the UK alone. The haul, the biggest recorded so far in this country, included huge quantities of harmful slimming pills that can cause heart attacks, strokes and even death.
According to Alastair Jeffrey, head of enforcement at the MHRA, the haul was almost twice the size of that seized the previous year, illustrating that the internet sale of these fake pills and products is on the increase.
Sometimes sites use celebrity images, without permission, to endorse dodgy slimming pills, as Laura Hamilton, the host of Channel Four’s A Place In The Sun, discovered to her disgust.
She says: “The people who do this are ruthless con-artists. They used my image without telling me and made it look as if I was endorsing their product. I’ve worked hard and followed a strict diet to get into shape. These kinds of pills can be deadly and I would never endorse them.”
The attraction of fake slimming pills offered on the internet seems to be their promise of providing a shortcut to getting slim. At best their ingredients are useless. At worst they can make you seriously ill.
To continue reading the full article, click here
What do you think to the diet pill craze? Harmless or dangerous?
Let us know what you think and share your experiences with us and others. Just follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and YouTube
Other stories in Health
How to avoid diabetes
Here's to better hearing
Eating for a healthy heart
Look after your legs
Pioneering prostate treatment
Foods After 50
Staying Moblie
Easing Pain for IBS sufferers
Lift transforms arthritis sufferer’s life
Coconuts' health bounty
Ear Implant can Change Lives
Try Raw Honey to Beat Hay Fever
The 10 best health apps
Easing Leg Cramp Agony
Is Anthony Wright the world’s worst patient?
The Importance of a Good Night's Sleep
Tooth Discolouration Why It Happens and What You Can Do About It
FSA: “face freezer fears” in a bid to tackle food
Meditation: Feeling the Space
Are you getting enough sunshine?
A virtual road to recovery for brain trauma
Soccer at a Stroll
Reduce Your Risk of Cancer
Making Fitness Fun
It’s never too late for sport
New Epilepsy Drug on the NHS
Stay Healthy This Winter
Nuts reduce risk of killer diseases
New app to revolutionise repeat prescriptions
Online health: Click or Curse?
New hope burns for diabetics
Salt: The forgotten killer
World Suicide Prevention Day:The Age of Anxiety
The Great Taboo
Just Do It
It's all in the timing
The Hidden Signs of Alcoholism
Silence is Golden
Breaking the barriers of isolation
Sweet dreams are made of this
Easing Migraine Misery
How will our care homes look in the future?
Opening up hospice care
Put eye health in the driving seat
Living with tinnitus
Sponsored Post- GOPO Supplements
Keeping fit indoors
Colour me happy
Flexible, Friendly, Fitness with FLexercise
The virtual reality time travel idea tackling dementia
Bowel Cancer Awareness Month
Bloating clue to ovarian cancer
Advertorial: Sleep one of the three pillars of good health
Keeping dementia at bay
The secret killer in your home?
A healthy gut feeling
Men, women and drugs
Tracking the hidden cancer
MPs: Ban cereal packet cartoon characters
When you've got to go...
Facing up to phobias
National treasure: 70 years of the NHS
How to keep your prostate healthy
Vitamins: Gummies fill the gap
Maximum energy, minimum effort
Gut-friendly Festive Recipes
Hi-tech revolution for retirement
How Stressed are you?
When silence is not golden