The head of an eating disorders program at a Missouri medical institute has expressed concern that the over-the-counter diet pill alli (low-dose Xenical) is ripe for abuse by young people with eating disorders like anorexia.

Dr. Randall Flanery, head of the Eating Disorders Program for the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute, said the side-effect of diarrhea that occurs when a person taking alli consumes too much fat makes it a prime target for teens seeking to purge after binge eating.

Teens with eating disorders tend to take laxatives at much higher dosages than recommended, Flanery said. “It’s analogous to laxatives. People with eating disorders take 10 to 50 (laxative pills) at a time. They become dependent and take higher and higher dosages.”

Debbi Kuehnel, a counselor at the Eating Disorder Recovery Center in St. Louis, said she already had encountered a young person who stole a bottle of alli.

“She took 10 pills. They don’t care about the side effects," said Kuehnel. A normal dosage of alli would be one pill before each meal.

“Putting this drug on the market was ridiculous,” she continued. “The ads say eat right, exercise and change your lifestyle and use the drug. You’ll lose weight if you eat right, exercise and change your lifestyle; you don’t need the drug."

She noted that the prescription version, Xenical, is intended for people who are morbidly obese.

:There’s no need to make it over-the-counter," she said.

Flannery, who also favors keeping alli behind the counter and trying to make sure teens aren't able to readily buy it, says a danger is that the medicine is the first non-prescription diet drug approved by the FDA.

"People will believe that because it’s over-the-counter and FDA-approved, it must be safe,” Flanery said. “It’s not.”