Spotlight on Research

The paper describes a surveillance study conducted by poisons specialists working at the four National Poisons Information Service (NPIS) centres covering the UK. The service since 2005 has standardised its operating procedures, providing 24-hour toxicological support to healthcare providers via telephone or online TOXBASE® enquiry; moreover, standardising its procedures has allowed information to be stored on a national database which forms the axis for this study.

The study describes data collected from telephone enquiry records and TOXBASE® user sessions concerning the substance 2, 4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) between the periods 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013. The paper reports age, sex, reported dose, duration of exposure, clinical features and outcome, the latter using a validated poisons severity score (Persson et al, 1998).

The weight-reducing properties of 2, 4-DNP have been well documented. It does, however, have a considerable toxicological profile and was banned by the FDA in 1938; although its effects on French munitions workers were documented much earlier during WWI (Tewari et al, 2009). 2, 4-DNP uncouples oxidative phosphorylation, increasing metabolic rate, heat production and lipolysis, but has a narrow therapeutic index and displays considerable inter-individual variation in dose response. Despite this 2, 4-DNP is readily available via the unregulated mail order sector (Siegmueller and Narasimhaiah, 2010).