A wave of American teens are using laxatives as a ‘budget Ozempic’ to feel skinnier, which is contributing to a shortage of the stool-loosening drugs.

Demand is beginning to outstrip supply for polyethylene glycol 3350, the generic name for laxatives like Miralax and Glycolax.

The teens descending on the laxatives may mean that people who actually need them to treat genuine constipation cannot access the drug, such as those with Crohn’s disease.

Laxatives may give the impression of short-term weight loss, but only water weight is lost and is put back on when someone drinks again.

An aging population in America, as well as a general lack of fiber in diets, is also causing the laxative shortage.

Eating disorder specialist Dr Jenna DiLossi told the Wall Street Journal she had seen a sharp rise in teenage patients abusing laxatives over the past two years, with some viewing it as an over-the-counter form of Ozempic.

Laxatives are drugs that loosen stools and increase bowel movements and are used to treat and prevent constipation. They work by drawing in water or physically stimulating the colon to contract. 

Some people might think that laxatives will help them poop out what they have eaten before the body absorbs the calories, meaning they will lose weight.

But this is false. The food we eat goes through many processes before it reaches your bowel and becomes stool.

The body absorbs the calories, fat, and the majority of nutrients before they reach the large intestine.

What is left is mainly water and some minerals which your body does not need. Some of it is absorbed by the body in the large intestine.

If someone takes laxatives and loses weight, they are only losing water. As soon as they drink something, they will regain the weight back.

Prior to the pandemic, Dr DiLossi said new clients rarely responded ‘yes’ to laxative use in intake surveys.

The clinical psychologist from Pennsylvania said that now, at least three of the five new teens she typically sees a week admit to having tried a laxative for weight loss.

‘When people have an excessive bowel movement and they feel completely empty inside, that gets wrapped up in thinness and health,’ she said.

Dr DiLossi said teens told her they got the idea to try laxatives from TikTok, where the hashtag #GutTok has garnered 1.1 billion views.

She said that even the videos that do not directly promote laxatives for weight loss still endorse the idea that going to the bathroom more often is better for you.

According to analytics company Pattern, searches for laxative pills on Amazon have more than tripled over the past year.

Meanwhile, the companies manufacturing the fiber supplements Metamucil and Benefiber have reported huge sales growth in recent years.

Dow Chemical, which makes pharmaceutical ingredients for drug companies, is building new factories which employees said is partly to produce more polyethylene glycol — the laxative that has been hard to get since the pandemic. Polyethylene glycol is also used in cleaning products and moisturizers.

Surprisingly, growing numbers of younger customers are using fiber supplements, suppliers say.

Haleon, the manufacturer of Benefiber, a popular plant-based fiber supplement, said that 18-42-year-olds are copping the supplement quicker than ever.

Jissan Cherian, who is head of marketing at Haleon and notes that its messaging has not altered, said: ‘The demand has changed.’

He thinks the move is due to millennials becoming more focused on wellness and an increasing awareness of the relationship between gut bacteria and depression.

Earlier this year, Haleon launched a gummy version of its product to appeal specifically to young adults.

The popular gaming platform Twitch has been told by online child safety experts to crack down on a fresh wave of content that has pornstars seductively licking microphones in their bras.

Twitch is primarily used for viewing videos of other people playing games — with 31million Americans logging in every month, a quarter being 16 to 24 years old.

But now content creators are increasingly coming onto the platform in the hopes of netting viewers for alternative, and more explicit, content.

Now, instead of video games and e-sports, sexualized ‘ear-licking’ live-streams, where scantily-clad women lick, rub and breathe into microphones while audiences watch and listen, are posted all over the platform. 

The content is categorized as ‘ASMR’ — or autonomous sensory meridian response, a tingling sensation throughout the body usually triggered by sounds such as whispering, tapping or brushing.

Videos tagged as ASMR attract millions of viewers, with hundreds of streams available on the platform.

Critics, such as child safety organizations and parents, say Twitch is putting children in harm’s way by exposing them to ‘inappropriate’ and ‘sexual’ content at an early age.

Explicit videos posted to the platform — bearing titles such as ‘Obey your Queen!’ and ‘cozy girlfriend cuddles’ — show women wearing few clothes while making suggestive movements on microphones, some of which are shaped like human ears. 

Their profiles link to OnlyFans and Patreon accounts — websites famous for their adult-only content — with a subscription costing from as little as $3.50 per month. Videos there have titles including ‘I will SPANK you. Get on your knees’ and ‘let the maid please you’.

Urging Twitch to clean up its act, a spokeswoman from online child safety organization Bark US — which gives Twitch two out of five stars for child safety — said they were ‘not a fan’ of the platform’s content.

‘Overall, the potential for toxic interactions on Twitch is too high and doesn’t outweigh the benefits of watching video games, no matter how fun it may be,’ they said.

‘Apart from the violent video games that streamers may play on Twitch (of which there are many), the primary danger to kids is inappropriate content.’

They added: ‘Profanity, sexual content, derogatory terms, and much more are possible in both the on-screen text chat as well as verbally by the streamer’.

Bark US also offers a pay-for platform to help parents stop their child visiting potentially unsafe websites online.

The NSPCC — a child safety organization in the UK — also raises concerns over Twitch, warning there are ‘no safety settings in place that stop children and young people accessing certain channels or chats’.

ASMR is a term coined by cybersecurity expert Jennifer Allen in 2010 and it has since spread rapidly online.

Adherents claim the tingling sensation linked to the triggers can prompt relaxation, relieve stress and enhance focus — despite there being little scientific evidence to support the claims. By 2019, only ten studies into the practice had been carried out. 

On Twitch, however, the term appears to have been co-opted to mean women licking ear-shaped microphones while wearing very little clothing.

One of the top creators, who goes by the username SharonQueen and has more than 500,000 followers, posts videos every day with titles like ‘obey your Queen!’ and ‘look into my eyes!’.

Clicking on links in her profile reveals other links that connect to her OnlyFans and Patreon accounts — with the titles surrounded by squirting water emojis to indicate explicit content.

Navigating from Twitch to her Patreon profile — via a third website — reveals videos with titles like ‘take everything off?’, ‘give me the most sexy kiss you can give, my lips are waiting’ and ‘I will SPANK you. Get on your knees’.

Another creator named AkuASMR who has a similar number of followers, posts videos where she wears only a sports bra and shorts and dresses up as characters including Asuna, a gym leader in Pokemon, and a scantily clad nun.

A visit to her profile also reveals a link to a website directing users to two OnlyFans accounts — one of which is free — and a Patreon account where users can pay as little as $3.50 per month to subscribe to her content.

A third user, who goes by the name FozenKin, also posts explicit videos showing her top and a lacy bra.

The videos have titles like ‘come get your ear love’ and ‘tingling braingasm time’.

Comments on the explicit videos include ‘feels amazing man’, ‘delicious like you’ and ‘just enjoy your rest silly’.

On its website, Twitch — which is owned by Amazon — says users must be at least 13 years old to use its platform. It also says those aged 13 to 18 should only use its website under the supervision of a parent or guardian.

But when DailyMail.com accessed the website, there were no attempts to verify age.

The explicit content was discovered within minutes of clicking browse and then on the ‘IRL’ tag — meaning ‘In Real Life’ — on the homepage.

When the explicit videos were clicked on, a page appeared, warning the video was ‘intended for certain audiences’. 

However, a user only needs to click ‘start watching’, to proceed to the content. No age verification is requested.

Twitch first came under fire in 2019 after it was found to be hosting pornography on one of its star streamers pages.

The platform apologized when the videos were brought to its attention and said they had ‘permanently suspended’ the account in question.

They came under fire again last year when an investigative report from Bloomberg suggested nearly 300,000 children on the platform had been targeted by child predators between October 2020 and August 2022.

Shortly after the report was published, the platform was accused of making ‘no attempt’ to resolve the issues raised.

Twitch told DailyMail.com: ‘To be clear, sexually explicit content is not allowed on Twitch and direct links to sexually explicit content are also against our rules.

‘Per our content classification guidelines, certain types of content must be clearly labeled, and users must provide explicit consent before viewing. 

‘Streams containing sexual themes are held behind a warning screen, for example, which a viewer must acknowledge and click through to view the content.’

They added that children under 13 years old are not allowed to use the platform, and that they deploy an ‘aggressive’ algorithm to detect and remove accounts that violate this policy.

Births in England and Wales fell to their lowest level in two decades in 2022, official figures show.

Around 600,000 live births were logged between the two nations last year — 3.1 per cent fewer than 2021.

The figure has been in freefall for a decade, apart from a blip during 2021 put down to a mini baby ‘bounce’ by couples who put their family plans on hold at the start of the Covid pandemic.

Experts believe the trend is partly down to women focusing on their education and careers and couples waiting to have children until later in life.

The UK’s fragile economy and cost-of-living crisis is also putting people off having children, some believe, evidenced by abortion rates simultaneously spiking. 

Experts claim people’s financial situations are increasingly playing into decisions around whether to start a family.

Others cite the environment, with people fearing that they will worsen their carbon footprint by having a child or that their child will have a bleak future due to climate change.  

Other reasons floated for plummeting birth rates include better access to contraception and lower child mortality.

There is no evidence that Covid vaccines are to blame, with scientists insisting there is no proof they harm fertility.

The ONS data shows that there were 605,479 live births between the two nations in 2022 — 577,046 in England and 28,296 in Wales.

This marked the lowest number since 2002 and was 20,000 fewer than 2021.

The drop is in line with pre-pandemic trends, which experts also fear will continue. 

Almost half of adults in the UK say they are not planning to have children, separate data revealed last year. Many cited financial reasons.

Experts fear the declining birth rate will leave Britain with an ageing population, pile extra pressure on the NHS and social care and hamper economic growth.

James Tucker, the ONS’ head of health analysis, said: ‘The annual number of births in England and Wales continues its recent decline, with 2022 recording the lowest number of live births seen for two decades.’ 

Fewer than half of new mothers (48.6 per cent) were married or in a civil partnership when they gave birth in 2022 — the lowest number on record.

Single mothers overtook those in couples for the first time ever last year. 

The rate peaked at 96 per cent in the early 1900s, before falling to 80 per cent in 1985, 70 per cent in 1991 and 60 per cent in 2001. 

It comes amid a trend of couples focusing on their careers and getting married and having children later in life.

Figures show that more older women than ever are becoming mothers. Some 31,228 over-40s gave birth in 2022 — up from 30,542 in 2021 and 17,336 in 2002.

But despite the number of older mothers soaring in recent decades, doctors tend to warn women not to leave it too late to have children. 

Fertility drops with age and the risk of complications, including stillbirths, increases.

Women in their late forties are estimated to have as little as a one in 20 chance of becoming pregnant naturally because they have fewer eggs, which are less capable of being fertilised.

Demand for donor eggs, one of the most common methods for older women to have a baby, have soared in recent years.

Other options include IVF — when a woman’s eggs are collected and mixed with sperm in a lab before being returned to the womb — and intrauterine insemination, when sperm is directly inserted into a woman’s womb.  

While births fell across the board among women in their twenties and thirties, teen births increased for the first time in nearly two decades.

Some 14,755 became mothers in 2022, up 7.4 per cent in a year.  

However, the figure is in line with pre-pandemic levels. A record low of 13,738 births among teens was logged in 2021, which experts think was down to Covid curbs stifling the young from hooking up. 

Meanwhile, there were 2,433 stillbirths in 2022 — when a baby is born after 24 weeks but did not breathe or show signs of life. 

The figure is down by 164 (6.3 per cent) from 2021. It means there was four stillbirths per 1,000 births — down from 4.1 in 2021 but higher than the 3.9 logged in 2019.

Rates were highest in the North East and West Midlands (4.3 per 1,000) and lowest in the South West (2.9 per 1,000). 

Advances in neonatal care, a decline in smoking rates among pregnant women — one of the leading causes of a stillbirth — and a greater focus on identifying at-risk babies has been credited for reducing the rate from 41.4 per 1,000 in the 1930s.

The Government in England has plans to halve the 2010 stillbirth rate by 2025, meaning the figure would need to drop to 2.6 per 1,000 births three years from now.

It comes as separate ONS figures published today show that three in 10 newborns in England and Wales in 2022 had non-UK-born mothers — nearly twice as many as two decades ago.

Among these 183,309 babies, mothers were most likely to be from India, while fathers were most commonly from Pakistan.

Violent doormen are abusing their power and targeting Britons on holiday, tourists have suggested, after a British man was allegedly beaten to death by bouncers in Cyprus.

Huseyin Mavideniz, 29, was attacked in the early hours of Thursday outside a club in Iskele, northern Cyprus.

He was allegedly punched in the head by the club’s security with one of the doormen said to have stamped on his head as he lay unconscious on the pavement, according to North Cyprus News. 

The British tourist was rushed to Famagusta State Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival. 

The tragedy is the latest in a slew of violent beatings and unjustified attacks on UK holidaymakers in popular summer destinations. 

Last month, James Taylor, 18, was held in a headlock by four bouncers at the CherryBay nightclub in Laganas, on the Greek island of Zakynthos. 

Shocking footage showed how they took it in turns to punch, kick and elbow him in the face and body, before kneeing him in the face. 

James, from Middlesbrough, told MailOnline he suffered two black eyes, a swollen jaw, bumps on his head, a bust lip and a cut on his knee.

The teenager revealed that the attack happened because he had stood on a chair to take a selfie with his friends before dancing there for ten seconds. A bouncer had tried to grab James’s arm to pull him down from the chair, but when James pulled back, the club employee disappeared.

‘The bouncer came back ten seconds later with the rest of the bouncers who were in the video and they took me outside and started beating me up,’ James said. ‘That’s all it took, something as little as standing on a chair.’

His ‘devastated’ mother Michelle Taylor, 55, warned other parents that what happened to James could happen to their children. 

‘I want to get this message out there that this is unacceptable and this is happening to our children,’ Michelle told MailOnline. ‘I’m a mother and every mother will feel this if this happens to their son when they go on holiday.

‘You shouldn’t have to worry about whether they could get beaten up by bouncers.’

The island of Zakynthos, also known as Zante, is known as a hotspot for bouncer violence.

Shortly MailOnline revealed what happened to James, a mother said her 19-year-old son saw bouncers in knuckle duster gloves beating up British teenagers ‘all day, every day’ in Zante. 

Emma, not her real name, told MailOnline: ‘I wouldn’t go there. There’s too much crime and, the problem is, the crime isn’t exposed or prosecuted. I didn’t realise how bad it was over there. My son had a horrific holiday.’

Her son said he witnessed bouncers targeting British teenagers in Laganas and ‘beating the s*** out of them’. 

Charlie, not his real name, said he was on a week-long holiday to Zante in July and saw bouncers beat up five teenagers along the strip in Laganas.

‘It’s not just one punch,’ Charlie told MailOnline. ‘They’re beating the s*** out of them. The bouncers are wearing knuckle duster gloves, they’re punching, kneeing and kicking them. 

‘And even if they are on the floor, they’re still going to kick them. It’s really bad, it makes me scared of them.’ 

Charlie said his instinct told him he needed to jump and help the teenager, but he makes the point that it’s not just one bouncer attacking them. 

‘When one bouncer starts punching one of these kids, another four would come out of nowhere and begin kicking and kneeing them. This isn’t just a few punches, this is a beating. And if you get involved, you will get beaten the s*** out of as well.’ 

And the violence isn’t just restricted to men.

Shocking footage from the popular Spanish resort of Marbella last year showed a group of British women being slapped and thrown to the ground by aggressive doormen.

The revellers were standing outside Lemmon nightclub before the ugly scenes broke out in front of a crowd of onlookers.

One bouncer is seen pushing the women and carrying them off, forcing them to hastily rearrange their clothing to avoid. 

The same doorman then walks back and throws a woman in a pink dress to the ground before lifting up her friend and carrying her further away from the bar.

One of the group is heard shouting at the bouncers: ‘What the f*** are you doing?’

Moments later, the protester is angrily slapped in the face by another member of the bar staff, before the first bouncer throws the woman in the pink dress to the ground for a second time. 

Then one of the doormen whips off his belt in anger and furiously smacks it down on a metal pole.

He holds it above his head threatening to strike the women until one of his colleagues intervenes. 

Further afield, a British father and son were brutally beaten by bouncers outside a bar in Thailand‘s ‘Sin City’ of Pattaya just last week. 

Holidaymaker Ian Thomas, 60, and his son Gregory, 37, had entered the Matador Bar in the city’s Soi Buakhao red light street but were allegedly asked to leave by the bar owner at around 1.35am on August 5.

The pair were ushered outside by bouncers when their heated argument descended into a physical brawl, with Gregory first being beaten up. CCTV footage shows how he was hit and pulled to the ground where he was then kicked repeatedly.

Footage then shows how the older Brit Ian, in a black shirt, then slapped a guard across the face, sparking more chaos as the staff pushed him to the ground while repeatedly kicking him in the head.

Gregory, in a checkered polo, was seen trying to help his father but was again attacked and beaten, with his father left in a heap in the road.

Later footage from the scene showed Gregory recounting the events.

The 37-year-old said: ‘The bouncer became aggressive with me and I said ‘do you want to fight me?’. He started fighting me. I came outside and he pushed me to the ground and my shoe came off.

‘I stood up and my shoe came off. I stood up and said ‘sorry, sorry’ and I gave him 2,000 Baht. Everything was OK.’

White Gladis was thought to have been pregnant when she first started ramming into boats, and has even taken her newborn calf with her on terror expeditions. 

The matriarch is among a pod of killer whales that have been attacking boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal since the summer of 2020.

The so-called ‘orca-uprising’, believed to have been instigated by White Gladis, has seen the species ramming and circling ships before wrenching away their rudders. 

Now, scientists believe the killer whale was pregnant all the while and, as the gestation period for orcas is 15 to 18 months, Gladis is thought to have given birth in 2021.  

Yet, rather than settling into motherhood, she continued her destructive endeavors, bringing her calf along with her. 

Commenting on her behaviour Mónica González, a marine biologist with the Coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals, said during a webinar: ‘She went to the boats with this calf, so she preferred to stop the boats rather than keeping her baby safe.’

Surprisingly, orcas typically look after newborn calves for at least two years after they’re born, providing them with safety and nourishment until they learn how to hunt.

According to Robert Pitman, a marine biologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, orca females have an average of five calves in their lifetime and are fiercely protective of each. 

The exact motive of her attacks remains unknown, but her peculiar behaviour has sparked theories from experts – the most prevalent being she may be acting out in response to a traumatic event.  

Gonzalez said on the webinar: ‘It was more important to stop the boats’ than to protect her calf, leading experts to believe ‘something bad happened’ to the mammal and that Gladis may have encountered a traumatic event with a sailboat.  

Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal who is a representative of the Atlantic Orca Working Group, told LiveScience: ‘The traumatized orca is the one that started this behaviour of physical contact with the boat.’

A ‘critical moment of agony’ made White Gladis aggressive towards boats – and this is now being taught and copied by other orcas, the biologist told LiveScience. 

It seems White Gladis has become a pioneer for other enraged orcas, as The Atlantic Orca Working Group has seen a 298% increase in orca-boat interactions from 2020 to 2023. 

Consequently, in the last few years, three boats have been capsized as a result of orca encounters and over 100 more have been damaged. 

Like humans, orcas pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. It’s certainly possible that White Gladis, the leader of her family, taught her calf and others in the pod how to damage ships in what she believed was a protective action.

It’s likely other orcas, especially younger mammals, may engage in the behavour out of curiosity or playfulness – ‘like a child playing with a football in the kitchen and breaking a window’ – but, Gonzalez explained that adults are more likely to interact with the boats out of trauma. 

The orcas show no sign of slowing down and, on June 22, three orcas attacked a boat participating in an endurance sailing race near the Strait of Gibraltar. Luckily, the vessel was not damaged and resumed the race following the encounter. 

A few days later, off the coast of southern Portugal, another boat was attacked. The boat’s captain Troy Torres responded to a Facebook post about the encounter. 

On the same day, a catamaran was targeted off Culatra Island by six orcas for 50 minutes, Bertrand d’Enquin, who was on the boat, wrote in a Facebook post.

He said: ‘One orca returned and batted the rudder one last time, as if to confirm it was broken. It was a harrowing experience.’

Some experts are now concerned about how the game will end, Deborah Giles, the science and research director at Wild Orca, said: ‘I am worried that people will take the situation into their own hands and use lethal or harmful tactics to try and, you know, get the whales to stop or at least, you know, stop an attack at the moment.’ 

Generation sicknote: ‘Worrying trend’ as nearly twice as many young adults are not working due to ill health compared with a decade ago

• Most of those affected only have qualifications at GCSE-level or below

By Shaun Wooller Health Editor

Updated: 02:16 EDT, 5 June 2023