Michael Reynolds, 55, lost his 24-year-old daughter Cara after she overdosed on diet aid raspberry ketones - which caused her to have a heart attack.
The devastated dad described how he held his dying daughter in his arms as she told hi she’d taken the slimming pills in a ‘moment of madness,’ after splitting from her fiancé.
Cara had suffered heart palpitations after taking just two of the tablets previously, and had vowed she would not try the slimming aids again.
And now Michael is campaigning for the ketones to be taken off the market, saying that if they hadn’t been so readily available, his young daughter would not have lost her life.
‘These killer pills need to be taken off the shelves to stop this happening again,’ he said.
'It was the most heartbreaking moment of my life, and one I will never forget.’
Cara, who was a support nurse and a slim size 10, had told her parents she planned to take the pills as well as going to the gym.
‘She told us the slimming pills were made form natural ingredients, so we didn’t think they were anything to worry about,’ Michael explained.
‘In a moment of madness, she’d taken an overdose because she had the ketones to hand. It was the most heartbreaking moment of my life, and one I will never forget.’
The high caffeine content of raspberry ketones is what killed Cara - with one tablet apparently being the equivalent to more than four cans of Red Bull or a whopping seven cans of Coca Cola.
‘The cause of death was caffeine toxicity with a blood level of 103 mg of caffeine per litre which is within the fatal range.’