Over 3.32 million Korean people received psychoactive appetite suppressants' prescriptions, including phentermine, phendimetrazine, diethylpropion, and mazindol in 2020, a lawmaker said. These medications are strictly managed as narcotic drugs worldwide due to substance dependence.

He urged the government to come up with a plan to prevent misuse or abuse of diet pills.

Independent lawmaker Lee Yong-ho says more than 3.3 million Koreans took psychotropic appetite suppressants in 2020.
Independent lawmaker Lee Yong-ho says more than 3.3 million Koreans took psychotropic appetite suppressants in 2020.

Independent lawmaker Lee Yong-ho released the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety data and the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA).

According to the data, the nation had 9.69 million prescriptions of appetite control drugs in the past three years. The number of prescriptions rose by 54.7 percentage points from 2.6 million in 2018 to 4.11 million in 2020. During the same period, the number of patients who took such pills also surged by 52.5 percentage points from 2.17 million to 3.32 million.

By age group, patients in their 30s had the highest percentage among those who received prescriptions of appetite suppressants for less than three months at a general clinic. Prescriptions for teenage patients climbed 24.7 percentage points, from 20,677 in 2018 to 25,786 in 2020.

The number of pediatric patients aged 10 or under more than tripled from five in 2018 to 17 in 2020. The youngest patient was six years old.

Seventy-five people were aged 90 or above, signaling that all age groups took appetite control pills.

“A 36-year-old patient had the largest individual prescriptions, seeing a doctor 103 times to get 15,156 tablets in 2019. The patient got 147 pills per visit to the clinic,” Lee said. “In 2019 alone, the total prescriptions of appetite suppressants surpassed 250 million pills.”

Even though physicians use psychotropic appetite suppressants in various forms to treat patients, it is difficult to say that there is no possibility of misuse or abuse, Lee went on to say.

Experts and the ministry say appetite suppressants should not be used for more than four weeks. They warned that taking them longer than three months could cause serious adverse reactions, including chronic addiction, pulmonary arterial hypertension, reflux heart valve disease, and psychiatric seizures, according to Lee.

“To reduce risk of drug misuse and abuse, the ministry plans to release information leaflets and evaluate the risk mitigation this year, but it is only at a recommendation level,” Lee said.

The government should promptly prepare a risk management plan to keep people safe from misuse and abuse of appetite control pills and their long-term side effects, he added.

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