laitimes

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

author:Magazine of Everything

The copyright of the original article belongs to the WeChat public account "Bring Science Home"

If someone told you that there is a diet pill that is more effective than all the diet pills on the market and has a significant fat burning effect, are you willing to try it? Such a "miracle drug" really exists, but its side effects are huge, and it is listed as a banned drug by many countries. Many people who are eager to exercise and lose weight, but have no relevant scientific knowledge, have lost their lives in vain.

Written by Seven Kings

This dangerous substance is 2,4-dinitrophenol, also known as dnp. Many of the so-called fast fat burning drugs and fitness drugs illegally sold online contain DNPs.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

Pure 2,4-dinitrophenol (dnp) is pale yellow

DNP does burn fat, but it can also kill people, and there is no safe dose at all. Some people who take DNPs will ascend to heaven within a few hours. How did such a powerful poison become a diet pill?

It all started a hundred years ago.

During World War I, DNPs were used to make bombs, which exploded on their own. DNP and picric acid were used to make howitzers.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

DNP explosion

By 1933, Stanford University's Winston Cutting and Maurice Tainter first discovered the effects of DNP on human metabolism, and their series of studies proved that DNP can lose weight.

So, how exactly does DNP lose weight?

The direct energy of the cell comes from atp, which is made in the mitochondrials, the cell's power station, which is taught in the middle school biology. However, DNP can hinder the conversion of energy into ATP and convert that energy into heat at the same time. In order to produce the same amount of ATP, the mitochondria have to increase horsepower and consume more energy, which is the principle of DNP weight loss.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

Protons (pink balls) drive the "water wheel" (atp synthase) to make atp (four balls connected together).

Specifically, in mitochondria, the atp synthesis plant (ATP synthase) resembles a waterwheel, which rotates and drives atp synthesis. The energy for the rotation of this waterwheel comes from the difference in the concentration of protons (h+) on both sides of the mitochondrial membrane. As long as there are more protons on the outside, then there is a steady stream of "water" to push the water wheel and synthesize ATP. However, DNP can cut off the "water" and stop the water wheel, resulting in atp not being able to synthesize.

For every 100 mg of DNP, the body's metabolic rate increases by an average of 11%. Most of the energy that should have been used to synthesize atp is converted into heat, raising the body temperature. Because of the side effects of thermogenesis, Russian soldiers used to take DNP for heating during World War II. Worthy of the fighting race.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

Therefore, oral DNP can make the body quickly consume fat and carbohydrates, thereby achieving a rapid weight loss effect. Then, in the United States, DNP was introduced to the market as an over-the-counter diet pill, and one of the brands was called formula 281.

Because the effect was immediate, DNP also quickly gained the reputation of "the king of diet pills", and consumers rushed to buy it. In the year since the DNP diet pill became available, at least 100,000 Americans have used it to lose weight.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

Some of the diet pills on the market that contain DNPs

Of course, the side effects of DNPs are also outstanding: think about what happens when your internal organs lack energy and go into barbecue mode.

In the literature, the average time of death from an overdose of DNPs is 14 hours, with acute symptoms, such as sweating rain, as early as 3.5 hours after taking it; the lowest lethal amount is 4.3 mg per kilogram of body weight. To make matters worse, DNPs have no antidotes. Many people who take DNPs for a long time develop damage to vital organs and cataracts.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

In fact, during World War I, French armaments factory workers experienced weight loss after exposure to high concentrations of DNPs, poisoning hundreds of workers and killing 63 people. In March, a report by the High Court of England and Wales even used cyanide as a metaphor for the toxicity of DNPs.

In addition, DNP is a carcinogen and environmental pollutant.

DNP belongs to the nitrophenolic compound and is easily converted into nitroso groups that can make tissues hypoxic, as well as carcinogen hydroxylamine derivatives. And because it is difficult to degrade by aerobic microorganisms in the environment, DNP is included in the "Priority Control Pollutant List" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In short, the life of DNP as a legal diet pill soon came to an end. In 1938, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled it "extremely dangerous and unfit for human consumption." Later, Canada and many European countries also banned this drug.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

But 50 years later, DNPs are making a comeback in countries around the world.

In 1981, a doctor named Bachynsky in Texas made DNPs into pills and sold them under the mitcal trademark. The man continued to do DNP weight loss after being warned by various investigations, and eventually went to jail in 2008.

The UK Food Standards Agency did not label DNPs as "not suitable for human consumption" until 2003, because too many fitness and iron skaters have taken DNPs in recent years.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

In 2015, Eloise Parry, a 21-year-old British female university student, died of poisoning from 8 DNps, and she suffered from bulimia. Image credit: theguardian

Originally, in the UK, it was not illegal to own or sell DNPs, because DNPs also had the purpose of making explosives, fertilizers, pesticides, and dyes. So some unscrupulous traders use these legal names to sell DNPs to people who want to lose weight and fitness.

Selling DNPs online is also a lucrative deal. DNPs bought in China and India in the name of fertilizers and the like are about £14 per kilogram, but when made into pills, its price can increase a hundredfold.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

The packaging looks like fertilizer and is actually made into dnp for slimming pills. Image source: bbc

Between 2007 and 2020, the UK's National Poisons Information Service recorded 138 DNPs poisonings and 26 deaths, with many survivors suffering from vital organ or nervous system damage.

As the illegal use of DNPs intensified, in 2015, Interpol issued a global health warning about DNPs, warning people not to buy magical weight loss pills containing DNPs. During its operations between May and June 2016, the FDA, in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, shut down 4,402 websites suspected of selling illicit drugs such as DNPs.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

A young woman who died of a DNP overdose in 2012 suffered from bulimia. Image source: bbc

Although it is now impossible to use dnp to search for the same product on large e-commerce platforms at home and abroad, a large number of dnp sellers can be searched in Google. Driven by interests, in the dark corners of the Internet, the business of DNPs continues.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

Although repeatedly banned, a large number of DNP diet pill sellers can be searched on Google.

Adolescent children are very sensitive to their appearance, and parents must pay attention to suspicious yellow drugs with the words "rapid fat burning" and unknown composition. Here are some of the former names of DNPs: dinosan, dnoc, solfo black, nitrophen, aldifen, chemox.

Of course, such a strong poison is not useless.

In the laboratory, DNPs are also often used as a tool for studying mitochondria. A 2015 study published in Science by the team of endocrinologist Gerald i. Shulman of the Yale School of Medicine found that DNPs had reduced toxicity after being modified and had the potential to treat fatty liver. Hopefully, the transformed DNP will one day become a true cure.

Why be slim before you die, and feel your bones after you die.

It can burn fat quickly and kill you, and this slimming poison that has been banned for 80 years has become popular again

Read on