MARIKENYA.com

Life is indeed hard these days that if you want to live comfortably, you can’t thrive doing just one job. In my circle of friends, I have somehow earned the nick the source.” This is because I sell a lot of stuff as a sideline. The good thing about me being a freelance salesperson is that I don’t sell products I don’t believe in or I don’t trust. I am not good at lying and I’m proud of this.

The other week, I was asked to sell diet pills and glutathiones. I was so tempted to do this because a lot of women, or even men, are into these pills lately. The Philippine marketplace was suddenly flooded with these products that promises the user the shortest route to beauty and glamor. I am so tempted. In fact, last year, I have taken those supposedly “harmless chinese herbal diet pills.” Those drugs helped me lose 10 pounds in a week by making my appetite go away but it also made me very nervous, my heart palpitated three times faster than what it used to be so I stopped.

The other day, I was watching the news that several brands of metathiones are being recalled. This included the very popular Lucida DS glutathione. Many of my friends uses these pills these days for that “instant mestiza effect.” I can’t blame them, when summer ended, I’m back to my regimen of using every whitening product that I can get hold of to minimize the effect of the sun in my skin. I have not tried using whitening pills because I am afraid it may also have ill effects like the diet pills I have taken in the past.

Dietary or whitening supplements are not the only craze these days. There also seem a proliferation of vitamin supplements. You name what you need, they have it. There are vitamins for the heart, for arthritis, for diabetes… there are even supplements for computer gamers. I sometimes feel dubious that these pills claim to miraculously heal all kinds of sicknesses but in the bottle, you’d find this note: no therapeutic claims.

In this day and age that life has suddenly become difficult and that we should work hard all the time, people turn to the wonders of drugs to make things easy for them. No doubt, pills offers the most convenient way to beauty and health. However, producing pills has also become an easy-to-get-rich tactic for scammers. Be very careful when choosing and buying the pills for you. Be skeptic, be cynical. Make sure that the pill is safe, that it has passed standards, approved by BFAD, and that people you know vouched for the use of these pills. If you feel anything different after trying it, consult your doctor.

Yes, looking good and feeling good is important. In the use of pills though, discretion is very important. Anything we put inside our mouth should be thoroughly evaluated. Pills may be our hope for eternal beauty and health, let’s keep i that way. Let’s stay safe.