U.S. man died due to overdose of antidiarrheal medication

PanARMENIAN.Net - A man who died in the Pittsburgh area last year did so from poisoning with loperamide, the active ingredient in antidiarrheal medication, BuzzFeed News reports, citing the medical examiner's office.

Arjun Patel, 29, died last November, but the cause of death was released this week, according to KDKA.

Loperamide is found in over-the-counter antidiarrheal medications like Imodium. Structurally, it's similar to methadone, an opioid commonly used to treat addiction to other drugs such as heroin.

In recommended doses, loperamide is safe. But when taken in large quantities, it can produce a high. Recreationally, it's known as "loping."

"Normally when you take it in the amounts that are recommended on the box or by a physician, you don’t really get much in the way of toxic effects at all," Michael Lynch, medical director of Pittsburgh Poison Center, told BuzzFeed News.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the approved daily dose of loperamide for adults is 8 milligrams per day for over-the-counter use and 16 milligrams per day for prescription use. In order to get a high, you'd have to take in the "dozens or hundreds of pills kind of range, which wouldn’t happen accidentally," said Lynch.

Often, said Lynch, people take loperamide in such high amounts to try to treat their withdrawal symptoms from other opioids. Loperamide acts on the opioid receptors in the gut to slow down digestion and reduce the number of bowel movements.