HEALTH – A dangerous misuse. It is not for its anti-allergic properties that influencers have adopted Periactin, but for a completely different reason… to take shapes. A use that is not without risk, which prompted the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines (ANSM) to ban the over-the-counter sale of this tablet, as it announced this Thursday, June 27.
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The measure will take effect on July 10, the date from which “any medication containing cyproheptadine can only be dispensed with a medical prescription”details the Agency’s press release.
Sold by the Teofarma laboratory under the name Periactin, the cyproheptadine molecule increases appetite and promotes weight gain, even if it is originally an antiallergic. Its use is thus increasingly misused, often by young women who seek to achieve beauty standards embodied, for example, by the silhouette of reality TV star Kim Kardashian.
However, Periactin can cause a series of side effects, sometimes serious, if taken uncontrolled. In December 2023, a 13-year-old girl ingested a large amount of cyproheptadine to ” make its shapes swell “, remember The Parisianand had suffered severe heart palpitations as a result.
A popular drug on TikTok
The ANSM called for vigilance even before this incident, and had put in place awareness-raising measures in 2022 to warn of the dangerous injunctions circulating on social networks.
Because the influencers promoting this molecule are at the heart of the problem. On TikTok, young women praise the effects of the product by showing their shapes, sometimes even with photos of themselves before and after taking the drug. “ Thank you Periactin! ” wrote one of them, who would have taken ” 9 kg in just one month “. Others pride themselves on having gained weight “ without doing sports » thanks to the medication.
The ANSM has therefore made its decision “based on what we see on social networks, where there is always a significant promotion of cosmetic use” of this treatment, explained to AFP Isabelle Yoldjian, medical director at the agency.
However, it is difficult to get an idea of the real extent of the misuse of Periactin because, beyond pharmacies, this treatment is widely sold online, in a manner that is difficult to control. “We cannot have a quantified estimate of misuse”admits Isabelle Yoldjian, who believes that the few cases of adverse effects recorded in recent years are probably well below the reality.
If the measure taken by the ANSM will have an effect in pharmacies, it is therefore difficult to assess to what extent it will have an impact on online sales. “We are not the internet police”also recognizes the medical director of the agency, who nevertheless judges that the actions undertaken by the ANSM have already contributed to greater awareness of the risks.
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