Antidepressants and Weight Gain|Antidepressants and Weight Loss.
Antidepressants and weight changes are seen together. Quite often people who take antidepressants for their depression experience weight problems. Most gain weight while some lose weight. Up to 25% of the people who take antidepressants including the most commonly used SSRIs, gain up to 10 pounds or more. This occurs after six months of using antidepressants.
Some people do not experience any increase in appetite nor do they eat more. The reason for weight gain therefore in these cases is a metabolic reason which is still to be identified.
Some people experience an increase in appetite and end up eating more. This could be due to the recovery process from depression and the feeling of pleasure caused by the antidepressants making the person enjoy things in life including eating which he or she was not enjoying due to depression.
Possible remedy.
A way around this would be to switch the antidepressants. Some antidepressants like Effexor (which belongs to the SSRIs type of antidepressants) are less likely to cause weight gain while Wellbutrin (which is an NDRI antidepressant) can cause loss in weight. Similarly it is common to see weight gain with Paxil (which is a SSRI) while Zoloft (which is also a SSRI) very rarely causes weight gain.
Antidepressants that are likely to cause weight gain:
- Tofranil and Sinequan which are tricyclic antidepressants.
- Parnate) and Marplan which are monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
- Paxil
- Trazodone
- Remeron.
Antidepressants that are less likely to cause weight gain.
- Effexor.
- Wellbutrin.
- Certain SSRIs such as Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Lexapro.
Remedy for weight gain and weight loss due to antidepressants.
Though switching drugs may help with the weight problem, the disadvantage of changing drugs is that the changed drug may not be as effective as the previous drug in treating depression symptoms. This is because different depression drugs work differently in different people and drug interactions too differ. Therefore it is strongly advised that if you experiencing weight gain with certain antidepressants, do not start taking any weight loss pills on your own.
A more practical approach would be to use certain measures on your own to lose weight such as sticking to a low calorie diet to lose weight and exercise to lose weight. Exercises will also help to improve depression symptoms.
Cutting down on calories should not be too harsh as this can alter the brain chemistry adversely. Ideally taking the help of an experienced and qualified dietician would be best as he could strike a balance between your depression and weight gain. However, if losing weight still poses a problem, it is essential that you give importance to treating the depression first and give secondary importance to your weight gain. Depression is definitely the worse of the two evils.
Your action step.
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