Introduced a decade ago as a prescription drug for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, its major side effect is weight loss because it suppresses the appetite for up to nine hours.

"For the jet- setting, hardpartying, over-extended girl, who naturally is concerned with her figure, it's become the miracle pill - one, however, with potentially dangerous consequences," reported W magazine recently. Even when taken as instructed, Adderall can cause psychotic episodes, depression and even serious heart problems.

"Last year, someone gave my cousin this doctor's number for weight loss," one woman told a reporter.

"He gave her loads of pills: a mixture of prescription and supplements. My brother had a party and you would not believe the state she got herself in - she soiled herself and was vomiting because of all those pills. The doctor never told her not to drink."

She was recounting this sorry tale in the changing room of her gym when someone overheard and asked: "Have you got his number?" Despite the fact that 20 deaths have been associated with the drug, women are willing to overlook the potential health risks in pursuit of a size double zero body.

"It isn't hard to get or illegal. Plus it's more chic to discreetly take an Aderall with a cocktail than to snort a line of coke," says one user.

Greta Angert, a Beverly Hills psychotherapist and eating disorder specialist, says Adderall doesn't carry a stigma because it is a prescribed drug. "But when someone is using it to lose weight, they should be treated for an eating disorder," she says.

In the U.S., with women only having to tell their doctor they are having trouble focusing to get a prescription for Aderall, and some physicians prescribing it to students to help them get through their exams, this drug is extending beyond Hollywood.

One New York pyschopharmacologist reported a trend in teenage girls selling their prescriptions to fellow students for e2 a pill. Victoria Beckham features prominently in the 'Thinspirational' galleries of proanorexia websites, where girls write in to coo about her 'beautiful protruding bones' and gaunt face, berating the fact they struggle to slim down to her size.

"Among my patients, Victoria Beckham is one of the top icons. As far as they can see, she gets invited everywhere, she's got plenty of money and a handsome husband," says Dr Dee Dawson of London's Rhodes Farm Clinic for Eating Disorders.

"It's not surprising that they associate her body shape with glamour and success." A report in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said body image drugs were being bought by children as young as just 14.

"We've heard of steroid-like substances being sold at the school gates,' says Pat Lenehan, spokesperson for the Drugs and Sport Information Service.

The extent of the damaging effects on still developing bodies is not known. "If famous women are rumoured to take drugs, such as clenbuterol, ordinary people will be tempted to do the same," says Linda Wells, editor of beauty bible Allure magazine.

And at less than e30 for 30 tablets bought over the internet, these dangerous diet aids are barely more expensive than supplements and vitamins.

So where will it end, and who's really to blame? At the recent fashion shows, with activists calling for models to at least maintain a healthy BMI, the focus seems to be on designers.

But the lines between the runway and red carpet continue to blur as actresses become clothes horses for leading fashion houses.

At London Fashion week, the godfather of fashion Giorgio Armani went on record. "I never wanted to use girls who are too skinny. Unfortunately, though, the stylists and the media have interfered and the trend is for models who are incredibly thin," he says.

New York designer Michael Kors agrees that the culpability lies with the LA super stylists and says he is sending them more and more size zero samples. Recently, he's been getting requests for negative zero and even a negative zero size 2.

But while women are willing to overlook the potential health risks associated with popping a pill-sized slimming aid, new evidence is coming to light that this trend has a sting in the tail. While clenbuterol and Adderall create the desired sylph-like effect in the shortterm, long-term users are reporting sudden and uncontrollable weight gain.

Having messed with an user's natural metabolism, the drugs seem to lose their efficacy almost as quickly as they helped shift excess pounds. Jackie Warner has seen the body backlash first-hand. "A friend on clen lost weight, but after a while the drug stopped working," she says. "She was just eating tuna and told me: "If I eat anything, I just blow up.' "

It's an ironic twist that the threat of weight gain, rather than the risk of serious illness or even death, may hold more sway over young women's decision to dabble with Hollywood's most dangerous diet.

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