The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) has launched a health alert following the withdrawal from the market of the food supplement HHS A1 L-Carnitine Lepidum capsules, produced by the company HHS (Turkey). This product, marketed as a dietary supplement, has been withdrawn due to the presence of sibutramine, an appetite suppressant active ingredient that can have harmful effects on cardiovascular health.
The AEMPS became aware of the situation through several complaints and issued a statement last Friday, highlighting that the product had not been notified to the competent authorities before being placed on the market, violating current regulations for this type of product.
According to the analyzes carried out by the Official Control Laboratory of the AEMPS, the product contains sibutramine “in sufficient quantity to restore, correct or modify a physiological function by exercising a pharmacological action, which gives it the legal status of a medicine.”
“This substance is not declared on its labeling, which misleadingly indicates a series of ingredients of plant origin, giving false information about its safety, and could cause serious damage to the health of people who consume it,” they highlighted in the letter.
Although sibutramine is an anorexigenic active ingredient that suppresses appetite and, additionally, produces an increase in caloric expenditure, its consumption may be associated with risks for cardiovascular health. These dangers include increased heart rate and blood pressure, which could cause arrhythmias, ischemic heart disease, and serious strokes.
The labeling of the product is misleading, as the agency indicated in the statement, in which they also highlighted the adverse effects that sibutramine has such as dry mouth, headache, insomnia, constipation, and it has numerous interactions with other medications.
In the past, sibutramine was part of prescription medications for the treatment of obesity, but its marketing was suspended in the European Union due to the serious cardiovascular adverse effects associated with its consumption. The agency strongly recommends that consumers who possess this dietary supplement avoid its consumption due to the serious health risks associated with it.
