Patterns of 2,4-DNP Use as Discussed on Social Media

Supporting material for Abdelati et al. (2023)

Quickstart

1. Clone the repository.
2. Type make from the top directory. The default target creates Figures 2-4. To make a specific one of those figures, type make figure-X where X is 2,3, or 4.

Online Demo

Background

2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) is a mechanistically unique weight loss agent whose effective and toxic doses are thought to mostly overlap. Our understanding of DNP toxicity in humans comes from case reports and analyses of reports to Poison Control, which are biased to more extreme presentations, leading to a gap in our knowledge about the adverse effects of DNP at nonlethal doses and substances used to mitigate DNP toxicity. Despite DNP being banned by the FDA for human consumption, Poison Control reports increased DNP use. Here we use social media to investigate the dose-effect relationship and coingestants based on reported use of DNP. Our main findin is that fatigue and increased body temperature are reported with increasing frequency at daily doses of 150 to 300 mg of DNP.