A woman hospitalized due to consuming an illicit weight loss drug has been diagnosed with a rare and life-threatening illness, according to her family.
Kellen Oliveira Bretas Antunes, aged 42, was urgently admitted to the hospital on December 17 last year following the ingestion of an illegal Paraguayan weight-loss pen, which resulted in abdominal discomfort. Hailing from Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, the administrative assistant was discharged a week later on Christmas Day, initially believed to be suffering from drug intoxication.
However, shortly after, she was readmitted with a series of neurological issues that were later identified as Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), a condition where the immune system attacks peripheral nerves, leading to symptoms such as pins and needles in the hands and feet, muscle weakness, numbness, tingling, sharp peripheral pain, breathing difficulties, drooping muscles, and eye problems like double vision.
Ms. Antunes was hospitalized again when she exhibited muscle weakness, dark urine, neurological complications, and respiratory failure.
Despite an initial improvement, her stepdaughter mentioned that Ms. Antunes is currently in stable condition and undergoing haemoglobin treatment to slow down GBS progression and aid in her nervous system recovery.
In a statement, Ms. Bretas remarked, “She is stable. There has been a significant improvement, but the process will be long, right?! Since she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, it will take at least 12 months of treatment, with physiotherapy, speech therapy, and other specialists.”
The stepdaughter previously highlighted that medical professionals couldn’t analyze the content of the weight loss pen as it was sourced from Paraguay. She noted, “Initially, she was hospitalized with severe abdominal pain, and drug poisoning was confirmed. My father retrieved the vial from our house and took it to João XXIII Hospital for analysis, but they couldn’t analyze it because it was a medication from Paraguay.”
Ms. Antunes’ hospitalization prompted a public alert from Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), cautioning the public that not all slimming pens are authorized for sale in Brazil.
Anvisa emphasized that purchasing from unauthorized vendors can be risky as these drugs are often unregulated, lacking reliable information on their origin and ingredients. Endocrinologist Márcio Lauria warned that unauthorized medications might contain unknown substances due to insufficient safety and efficacy checks during production.
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