ORDEAL OF DIET ‘CRAZE’
Suit blames pills
SHE WANTED to lose weight but instead lost her mind. A Queens Army reservist who took fat-burning pills spiked with an illegal stimulant suffered insomnia that caused her to hear voices and act so bizarrely that she was committed to a mental hospital, according to a shocking lawsuit.
At the height of her sleep-deprived delirium, Sainah Theodore, 26, got into arguments with strangers, stopped her car in the middle of a busy intersection, and finally tore a screen door at her home and stabbed pillows and pictures until medics had to be called, her lawyer Brian Pascale said Wednesday.
“I couldn’t believe all of this happened to me. It was a blur. I had no recollection of my behavior,” said Theodore, a sociology student, emergency room clerk and Army reservist.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court seeking unspecified damages, the Cambria Heights woman placed the blame with Natural Health Food Center in East New York, Brooklyn.
In December 2012, the health shop sold Theodore a product called Natural Lipo X — which she successfully used a year earlier.
But this time, she had to stop five days into the month-long regimen. After a few days of light sleep, she descended into six days of complete insomnia, court papers alleged.
After her meltdown, she spent the next five days in a mental institution and her upcoming deployment to Afghanistan had to be put on ice, possibly forever, she said.
Lab tests of the capsules she took confirmed they contained high levels of caffeine, a laxative called Phenolphthalein that’s restricted from over-the-counter meds and Sibutramine, a weightloss stimulant that was banned by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010 due to a long list of side effects including sleeplessness, the suit stated.
None of these substances appeared on the Lipo X label.
“It’s a black market product. It’s an illegal product,” said Marc Ullman, a lawyer for Theodore who specializes in food and drug litigation.
Kennedy Angeliz, who said he is the store manager’s son, claimed the insurance company indicated that Theodore was fasting while on the pills.
“We can’t leave the store to see the customer eats well,” he said. “The insurance is handling this. That’s all I will say.”
Theodore’s lawyer rejected that, saying she ate properly while taking the pills.
Industry insiders said that spiked supplements are a known problem.
“Individuals who intentionally adulterate products with illegal and undeclared ingredients are not complying with current laws and regulations,” said Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Product Association.
Theodore said that is part of the reason she brought the suit. “I just want people to have a warning,” she said. “I wouldn’t want somebody else to go through this.”