14 DAY TRIAL // Some diet pills have been known to contain ingredients that lead to insomnia, anxiousness or depression and, in this particular case, it allegedly triggered a psychotic breakdown that sent a woman straight into a mental hospital.
Sainah Theodore accused a brand of diet pills called Natural Lipo X of containing illegal and unlabeled ingredients and sued the store that commercialized them for sending her into a psych ward for almost one week.
After taking the pills, Sainah suffered from severe insomnia, going without sleep for six days and triggering an erratic behavior that made her start stabbing pillows and stop her car in the middle of an incredibly busy intersection, notes Daily Mail. The crazed woman was committed into a mental institution for five days in order to calm her down.
The awful incident made her take legal action against the Natural Health Food Center in Brooklyn that sold the alleged illegal capsules. The 26-year-old woman accused hearing voices and being unable to control her reactions after taking several pills.
Sainah had to postpone her deployment in Afghanistan because of the pill-induced breakdown and of the sedation she had to be under during her period in the psych ward. She accused the capsules of containing illegal and unmarked ingredients, and after lab tests it was proved she was right, the pills contained high levels of caffeine and Phenolphthalein laxative which is illegal to sell over-the-counter.
The capsules also contained Sibutramine, a substance used to trigger weight-loss but that was banned because of its dangerous side-effects. The combination of substances led the woman into a crazed behavior and a breakdown she barely remembers.
“I couldn't believe all of this happened to me. It was a blur. I had no recollection of my behavior,” Ms. Theodore says, according to Daily Mail. After suing the store, the managers retaliated by saying that the breakdown was triggered by a combination of factors, and especially by the fact that she was so desperate to lose weight that she started fasting while taking the pills.
Sainah stated that she was eating normally and the only thing that changed in her died were the pills. Together with her lawyers, Ms. Theodore is battling the store in court in order to bring them to justice and avoid these kinds of episodes happening to other people as well.