Dead student's family call for clampdown on slimming drug

Sarah Houston, 23, died after taking banned dinitrophenol (DNP), which she ordered online, alongside antidepressantsA coroner and the family of a medical student suffering from bulimia who died after taking a banned weight-loss drug bought online have called for a change in the law to further tighten the distribution of the substance, which has been blamed for other deaths.Dr Graham Mould, a forensic toxicologist, told an inquest into the death of Sarah Houston, 23, that a combination of dinitrophenol (DNP), which is banned from human consumption but is used as a chemical pesticide, and antidepressants may have been fatal.DNP, which was first used to treat obesity in the 1930s but was banned as a food substance due to its dangerous side effects, continues to be used as a slimming aid by bodybuilders around the world. It was linked to 62 deaths in a study published last year in the Journal of Medical Toxicity.The University of Leeds medical student, who comes from a family of doctors, is believed to have been taking the drug secretly alongside a prescribed antidepressant Fluoxetine. Houston was found dead in her bedroom by a flatmate.The inquest in Wakefield heard she had complained of feeling hot and unwell and had been breathing heavily on the evening before she died in September last year.Mould said there was no evidence of an overdose. "We don't know how long Sarah had been taking DNP but it may have accumulated in her system," he said. "It increases the body's metabolic r...
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