Deadly Dieting

- Emma Rossiter And Emmie Harrison

When it comes to losing weight, most of us wish we could just snap our fingers and fit into our dream size. So it’s no wonder many of us look for quick-fix products, such as weight-loss shakes and detox teas, to get there faster.

But it’s not this kind of quick fix that’s the problem, it’s the cheap and unregulated pills sold online. With promises to ‘burn through fat’, more than a third of people trying to lose weight in the UK are opting to use slimming pills bought online.

This week, BBC3’s Inside Britain’s Black Market: Who’s Selling Fake Stuff? takes a look at the unregulated labs producing pills on mass. The diet pill, clenbuterol, for example, can be pumped out up to 5,000 times an hour. But some of these ‘miracle pills’ contain potentially deadly chemicals like DNP (2,4-Dinitrophenol), which has a variety of industrial uses, including as a photographic chemical, a fertiliser and in the manufacturing of explosives and dyes. All available with the click of a button. We speak to one woman who lived to tell the tale.