Evidence map›Paper›PMID 22813089›Full record

ArticleAmerican journal of public health2012

The return of rainbow diet pills.

Pieter A Cohen, Alberto Goday, John P Swann

Open access · greenAbstract readHistorical Article
In one paragraph

Article in American journal of public health, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
15citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
1.9field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. The Evolution of Medications for Obesity Management.JGH open : an open access journal of gastroenterology and hepatology · 2026
    Review
  4. Review
  5. Obesity: a 100 year perspective.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025
    Review
  6. Article
  7. Signaling pathways in obesity: mechanisms and therapeutic interventions.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2022
    Review
  8. Anti-obesity drug discovery: advances and challenges.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2022
    Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Thyroid Hormone Action and Energy Expenditure.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2019
    Review
  12. Review
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Pieter A CohenHarvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02143, USA. pcohen@challiance.org
Alberto Goday
John P Swann
Cambridge Health Alliance · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently warned consumers about the risks of weight loss supplements adulterated with multiple pharmaceutical agents. Some of these supplements combine potent anorectics, such as amphetamines derivatives, with benzodiazepines, beta-blockers, and other medications to suppress the anorectics' adverse effects. These weight loss supplements represent the most recent generation of rainbow diet pills, named for their bright and varied colors, which date back more than 70 years. Beginning in the 1940s, several US pharmaceutical firms aggressively promoted rainbow pills to physicians and patients. By the 1960s the pills had caused dozens of deaths before the FDA began removing them from the US market. We used a variety of original resources to trace these deadly pills from their origins in the United States to their popularity in Spain and Brazil to their reintroduction to the United States as weight loss dietary supplements.

Indexed as

Drug ContaminationWeight LossAmphetaminesAnti-Obesity AgentsAppetite DepressantsBrazilDietary SupplementsHistory, 19th CenturyHistory, 20th CenturyHistory, 21st CenturyHumansSpainUnited StatesAmphetaminesAnti-Obesity AgentsAppetite Depressants

Identifiers

PMID22813089
PMCPMC3482033
OpenAlexW2151738335

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.