A U.K. woman died earlier this month after taking toxic diet pills she bought over the Internet, which her mother said "burned" her up from the inside, The Guardian reported.
Eloise Aimee Parry, of Shrewsbury, England, drove herself to a hospital on April 12 after falling ill. At first doctors were not alarmed because the 21-year-old appeared lucid, but once tests showed she had ingested high levels of dinitrophenol, an industrial chemical, the situation took a turn for the worse.
"The drug was in her system, there was no antidote, two tablets was a lethal dose and she had taken eight," Parry's mother, Fiona Parry, said in a statement from West Mercia Police.
Dinitrophenol, also called DNP, is often used by bodybuilders and others seeking to lose weight because of its ability to speed up a person's metabolism, according to the National Health Service. But the toxic chemical wreaks havoc on the body, leading to skin lesions, "dinitrophenol cataracts" and sometimes death.
Staff at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital did everything they could for Eloise as her condition worsened.
"As the drug kicked in and started to make her metabolism soar, they attempted to cool her down, but they were fighting an uphill battle," her mother said.
"She was literally burning up from within. When she stopped breathing, they put her on a ventilator and carried on fighting to save her."
But eventually, Eloise "burned and crashed" later that day, Fiona Parry said.
West Mercia investigators are looking into where Eloise bought the slimming pills from and how they were advertised. According to her mother, she took a higher dosage than the amount recommended on the packaging.
While DNP is not illegal - it's used in pesticides - the government has repeatedly issued warnings against it, including one in 1938 calling it "extremely dangerous and not fit for human consumption," The Guardian reported.
The Food Standards Agency, which regulates DNP, also warns against consuming the chemical that has killed over 60 people worldwide, according to the newspaper.
An autopsy on Eloise is pending and the investigation into her death is ongoing.
"The coroner's report will establish the exact cause of Eloise's death, but we urge the public to be incredibly careful when purchasing medicine or supplements over the Internet," said Chief Inspector Jennifer Mattinson, the newspaper reported.
"Substances from unregistered websites could put your health at risk as they could be extremely harmful, out of date or fake."
