What Diet Pill Abuse Can Mean
Diet pill abuse usually goes hand in hand with an eating disorder. Many individuals who take excessive diet aids or who use them extensively despite their low body weight do so to help keep their appetite at bay while attempting to stimulate their slowed metabolism.
When you starve the body, particularly when you suffer from anorexia, the metabolism slows to the point that when you eat it can feel as though you actually feel your body gain a pound or two. This is not necessarily in your mind. Long term sufferers of eating disorders can become so finely in tune with their body that they can feel the slightest adjustment in water weight.
The excessive use and abuse of diet pills are often taken because the pills claim they can increase the metabolism. It seems logical. If you’re not eating and your metabolism is slowing, taking something that will stimulate the metabolism should make it easier to continue to lose weight while you continue to starve your body.
The strain on the heart when it comes to the long term use of diet pills can be fatal. When you combine the heart strain that anorexia causes, many individuals with eating disorders end up with heart attacks from the diet pill abuse and the starvation effects. Anything that contains ephedrine or Phen Fen carries an increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure.
Ephedrine based diet pill abuse is a likely choice because the initial rush is similar to a high. When you are starving the body, energy is at a minimum. When you can take a pill that increases your energy, you believe you function better.
What you might not realize is that this type of abuse or addiction can lead to significantly and dangerously high blood pressure, psychosis, and severe depression. Ephedrine is not even meant to be used as a diet pill, therefore presenting significant danger to those who choose to use it in this way.