British woman Eloise Parry, 21, has died after swallowing eight illegal diet pills she bought over the internet.
Medical staff at a hospital in Shropshire, England, were unable to save the young woman, who took four times the lethal dose.
The tablets overheated Ms Parry’s body, causing her to ‘burn up’, mother Fiona Parry said.
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“She was literally burning up from within,” Ms Parry said in a statement.
“They attempted to cool her down, but they were fighting an uphill battle.
“They never stood a chance of saving her. She burned and crashed.”
Illegal slimming pills containing DNP can easily be bought online.
The toxic weight loss pills contained a substance known as Dinitrophenol (or DNP), which can be used to make weed killer and explosives.
“She just never really understood how dangerous the tablets that she took were,” her mother said.
The public should be “incredibly careful” when buying medications or supplements over the internet, local police chief inspector Jennifer Mattinson said in a statement.
“Substances from unregistered websites could put your health at risk as they could be extremely harmful, out-of-date or fake.”
The dieting pill is reportedly popular amongst bodybuilders.
Pills containing DNP were also linked to the death of British medical student Sarah Houston, 23, two years ago.
The Food Standards Agency in the UK has described DNP as “extremely dangerous to human health”.
DNP is illegal to use in Australia without a prescription, is not normally prescribed, and cannot legally be purchased over the internet.
