Health alert: ARMA-Sin Gang San contains banned ingredients sibutramine and fenfluramine which can lead to heart disease.

The Department of Health today appealed to people not to buy or consume slimming product ARMA-Sin Gang San as it contains banned ingredients sibutramine and fenfluramine which can lead to heart disease.

The appeal was made following a report from the Hospital Authority concerning a 30-year-old Indonesian woman who developed hallucinations and confusion after taking the product for two weeks in July.

She bought the Indonesian-imported drug from a friend and was admitted to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital. She is now stable.

The department said the product was the same as the one involved in a public complaint last month. Twenty-four boxes of the product were seized from two locations and police arrested three people for further investigation.

Sibutramine, used as an appetite suppressant, can cause increased blood pressure and heart rate, and people with heart problems should not take it.

Banned in Hong Kong in 1998, fenfluramine was used as an appetite suppressant for management of obesity but could lead to heart valve disease.