An Open Letter to Kim Kardashian

Dear Kim,

My Internal Medicine team admitted a patient the other night who is one of your biggest fans.  Unfortunately she was having chest pains and couldn't immediately share why she liked you so much. 

I mean no offense by saying this, but I didn't really know too much about you until a few months ago.  Apparently you became famous by being the daughter of a rich lawyer in LA.  Just being known for that wasn't enough, so you decided to explore the world of acting with a couple appearances on semi-popular TV shows.  But your big break came when you posed for Playboy a few years back.  After that, you were offered your own reality show documenting your stressful and chaotic family and dating life.

Anyway, back to my patient.  She's a nice lady who weighs about 300 pounds and was admitted to the hospital for chest pain..  For the past few months she had wanted to lose some weight and start exercising so she could be healthier.  Unfortunately, eating healthy wasn't working fast enough for her, so she opted for a quick fix, appropriately named Quick Trim.  I believe you'll recognize this as a diet pill that you endorse.

After we ran a bunch of tests on this lady and luckily found she did not have a heart attack, we were suspicious for another cause of the pain and decided to look into these pills of yours a little more.  Oddly enough the ingredients aren't listed on the back of the pill bottle, but with much searching online I found them. 

1. Caffeine.  Specifically, the same amount of caffeine that is in 4 cups of coffee.  Imagine not realizing that was an ingredient and taking it with your breakfast which in most Americans' case includes a big cup of coffee!

2. "Herbs" - while herbs aren't necessarily bad for you and can add great flavor to your dinner, there are some out there that aren't worth consuming ... like willow tree bark extract.  Turns out this herb actually enhances the action of caffeine.  So we'll up that to the equivalent of 6 cups.  Wow, that's making my chest hurt already!

3. Diuretic - this is basically something that makes you pee.  We give diuretics to patients who have too much fluid in their body - like people in heart failure. If you give a diuretic to a normal person, they wind up peeing out too much water (dehydration) and also losing a lot of their electrolytes. 

4. Laxatives - um, self explanatory.

You market these pills as "natural fat burners that rid your body of excess water and waste".  What does that mean exactly?  Well based on the ingredients it means that a person desperate to lose weight will take these and be super jacked up on caffeine, and always be near a bathroom secondary to ingredients #3 and #4.  If they're unlucky, they may have some supra-ventricular tachycardia from all the caffeine and a little chest pain due to their heart beating so fast.  If they're extra lucky they will have peed out all their potassium and have muscle breakdown and some changes on their EKG.  Kim, were you aware that you encourage people to do this to themselves?

Well, fortunately, our patient turned out okay.  She had a little chest pain from the caffeine but it turned out to be relatively harmless.  I just feel bad that she went through all that worry and built up a pricey hospital bill and didn't even have any weight loss to show from it.  While counseling her at discharge, we couldn't decide which of your lifestyle promotions we would rather her take up: your Quick Trim, endorsement of Carl Jr cheeseburgers, or Sugar Factory Lollipops.  

Maybe I'll just suggest she go about being healthy the recommended way: healthy responsible eating and regular exercise.

Thanks for putting your product out there and keeping hospitals in business; unfortunately its from side effects and not because they are "consulting their doctor before beginning any weight loss regimen".

Sincerely, Kacie