WWL-TV

It's a pill that is one of the most hustled drugs on the Internet because people in Hollywood say it makes them stay thin. And local college and high school students say it's working for them too. But doctors say there could be a dangerous price to pay.

This young woman in her 20's, we'll call "Annie," wears an average size, but she calls herself a "chunker."
Meg: "How much pressure is there in your age group to be super thin?"

Annie: "Big time pressure."

Meg: "From boys or girls?

Annie: "Everyone!"

The reason Annie feels so overweight, even though she's not, is because not long ago she was rail thin, 45 pounds lighter on her small frame.

"The thought of food made me feel, it was disgusting looking at food, made me feel sick and I liked it too because I was getting real skinny," says Annie.

What made her brain not want to eat was this? Adderall. 

"They just quit thinking about food as much. They just don't feel as hungry," says Dr. James Barbee who is a professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Neuroscience at LSU Health Sciences Center.

Adderall is a prescription drug used to help people with Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD, as it's called.  It improves concentration and can work as an antidepressant.  When it was prescribed for Annie her grades were good, and homework was done with energy to spare. 

But in this recent article in Allure Magazine, people who work in Hollywood and Los Angeles admit to using it, some illegally, to stay thin.  Two local young women say they and their friends in high school and college have known about that for years.

Meg: "Did you have other college students or high school students or even older people who knew you were taking Adderall for your medical condition want to buy it black market from you?

Annie: "Big time, everybody that goes to school wants it." 

Annie says students want it to focus better and study all night before an exam, and lose weight. She's been offered $5 a pill.  This woman, in her 20's as well, we'll call "Jennie" was also prescribed Adderall for a lack of concentration but liked the weight loss side effect.

Meg: "Does it make you lose your appetite?"

Jennie: "Yes, incredibly, I mean there could be the best hamburger in the world and I would just not go for it."

Meg: "Have you lost weight since you've been on Adderall?"

Jennie: "Yes."

Meg: "How much?"

Jennie: "Probably a good 10 to 15 pounds."

Jennie says abuse of Adderall is common. So is another ADD drug called Concerta which is the same type of drug as Ritalin. When people heard she had a prescription, her phone began to ring. 

Meg: "Girls would take Adderall around lunchtime so they wouldn't eat too much at lunch?"

Jennie: "Yes."

Meg: "Where would they get it from?"

Jennie: "Some people are prescribed and some would just buy it off a friend or you could even steal it from someone." 

Dr. James Barbee says Adderall is very beneficial in his patients who are medically supervised with the proper dose but it can be dangerous in the hands of an abuser.

"That can lead to mood disorders, elevations in heart rate blood pressure that kind of thing. It's highly addictive. My reaction to it is it just shows how crazy our society has become about the issue of weight and appearance," says Dr. Barbee.  

"I know that recreationally more and more children are using it to help them  focus on tests. It's the new brain steroid, certainly our patients talk about this in clinic and I think it's a big concern," says Dr. Melinda Sothern a professor of Public Health at LSU Health Sciences Center. 

"It speeds up other things in you like your heart, your cardiovascular system, so individuals are prone to actually sudden death, prone to heart attacks. If you have thyroid disorders, that's a problem.  There's many negatives on the use of dextroamphetamines and amphetamines for weight loss. They clearly, they are not approved for that use and the reason they are not is that are just not effective," says Dr. Kim Edward LeBlanc, the head of Family Medicine at LSU Health Sciences Center.

"Nothing surprises me in what I am seeing nowadays. I just think they are bypassing the doctor, which to me is basically suicide," says fitness expert Mackie Shilstone of East Jefferson General Hospital.

Some doctors said they have patients who claim another doctor prescribed Adderall for them for weight loss. Drs. Barbee and LeBlanc are against that.  But young people say they feel pressure to compete for grades, dates, looks, factor in the stress from Hurricane Katrina losses, and they say they rather take the dangerous health and legal risks to fit in their clothes and the in-crowd.

"Everyone's one college, and everyone needs to look good for events like football games," says Jennie.

"There's a lot of girls that guys won't go out with if they're fat or overweight,” says Annie. 

But doctors wonder, at what price.

Doctors say parents should watch for signs of Adderall abuse and should be concerned if their child has a sudden loss of appetite, weight loss and a change in sleep patterns.