diet pills and medical tests

[Bonnie]

Will diet pills alter the results of medical tests like blood pressure tests, pregnancy tests, blood glucose tests, etc?

[TaraNorth]

I can only answer your question related to pregnancy tests. For the most part they should cause any problems. However, my friend wast taking a diet pill that had diuretic ingredients in it, so they were causing her to pee more and it turned out that because of that her urine wasn't as concentrated as it normally would have been, so it gave her a false-negative result when she took the at-home pregnancy test, because the test couldn't properly detect the amount of HCG present in her urine. I've also heard that if you take a diet pill that contains HCG in it, this could cause a false-positive, because the test will determine that you have the level of HCG that would determine pregnancy, except that the additional amount is there because of a pill and not because you're pregnant. So for pregnancy those are two things you'll want to keep in mind.

[BabyButtons]

Hmmm...that's a good question Bonnie. I guess it's quite possible that they can based on TaraNorth's answer. I guess it's possible that they can also effect blood pressure, because I'm pretty sure some of the side effects of some of the ingredients in OTC diet pills can increase blood pressure, such as some stimulants. Caffeine can spike blood pressure in a normal and healthy individual for a short period of time and I think that synephrine (the stimulant in bitter orange) can also increase blood pressure, but whether these ingredients will actually effect your blood pressure throughout the day and alter tests, I have no idea. I also don't know if blood glucose is altered by any of them. Definitely something to talk to your doctor about if it's a concern. I'm glad you asked this though. I never thought about this!

[JennyR]

I imagine that certain diet pills can also effect blood glucose tests, because if certain drugs can cause problems, I imagine that certain supplements too. I know that some OTC diet pill formulas contain certain ingredients (sorry, I can't think of any just off my head at the moment) that can alter blood glucose levels. I don't know if this would be enough to alter tests or anything, but it's definitely worth looking into or bringing up with your doctor if this is a concern for you.

[MadMike]

When I read this I was about to talk about how warped that is that they have this kind of impact on the body but then again, a lot of foods do that, so I guess it's not as messed up as I first thought.