by Alan Mozes
health reporter
Antidepressants For Weight Loss - Weight Gain From Antidepressants Is Minimal, Study Suggests
Thursday, (health news) - although it has been known for a long time that some antidepressants can help stimulate weight gain, a new study discovers that the real value gain is usually small.
"This study was motivated first by the number of patients who asked me if their medicine will make them gain weight," said the co-author of the study Dr. Roy Perlis, director of the center of Experimental drugs from Massachusetts General Hospital and Diagnosis in Boston.
"is the most common question I get to prescribe any medication, frankly," he said. "But most antidepressant studies were short-term, looking at only a few months of treatment. So I wanted to look at him for a long period of time," explained Perlis.
"I think our findings should be comforting for patients. Yes, antidepressants can take in some cases to small amounts of weight gain, this is true. And we need to pay attention to it, and do A much better job of raising people about the issue, "he said.
"But we also think these are drugs that all do their work intended, and that the amount of weight gained that they can bring is very, very modest, and occurs at very similar levels in medicines," added Perlis, who It is also an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
The study, financed by the National Mental Health Institute of the US, appears in the online edition of June 4 of Jama's psychiatry.
According to the researchers, more than 10% of Americans are prescribed antidepressant medications at some point in their lives.
To explore how these drugs can affect weight gain, the research team carried out an analysis of electronic health records to track weight gain between more than 19,000 adults suffering from depression.
These patients were treated with at least one of the 11 different antidepressants for at least three months between 1990 and 2011. The list included: Amitriptyline (ELAVIL), BUPROPION (Wellbutrin), Citalopram Obromide hydrocram (Celexa), Duloxetine (Cymbalta), escitalopram oxalate, fluoxetine hydrochloride, mirtazapine, nortriptyrin (sensation), paroxetine hydrochloride, venlafaxine or sertraline hydrochloride.
Approximately 3,400 additional patients were also included in the analysis, although none had been diagnosed with depression. All were treated by other issues with a number of non-antidepressant medications, including asthma and anti-obesity requirements.
Weight fluctuation between all patients was followed for a year.
Perlis and colleagues have found that being younger and / or masculine increase the risk of gaining weight, as did the beginning of treatment with a relatively low body mass index (BMI, a measure based on weight and height ).
When facing in specific antidepressants, the researchers found that the Celexa seemed to promote more weight gain than other popular antidepressants. The Celexa is from a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIS), which also includes Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.
Sensoval, Elavil (which is no longer available in the United States), and WellButrin all took "significantly" earn less weight than the celebration, the survey showed.
However, Perlis emphasized that the band in the weight gain between the various drugs was very narrow, with very little practical difference seen in the real pounds won by patients in different meds.
"Really, these antidepressants are very similar in their potential to cause a small amount of weight gain," he said. "We are talking, on average, a gain of about one to two pounds over a year. So there are no quantities. And I really do not think our findings would play me automatically to choose a medication on another based on your Impact on weight gain. Not unless a patient has been very, very concerned about this. "
and, perlis added, antidepressants can sometimes promote weight loss, particularly between depressed patients who can Have gained some weight before the start of treatment.
"So instead of being scared because it gained weight, I hope people are quiet that treatment can really help in this department," he noted. "The goal is to help people to be more comfortable to get treatment for these very treatable diseases, whether with medications or therapeutic conversation or both."
Also playing on the topic of weight gain, another JAMA psychiatry study as a subgroup of patients of depression appear to be particularly vulnerable to weight gain as a result of their own condition rather than their treatment pharmaceutical.
In this case, a team of Swiss researchers, led by Dr. Aurelie Lasserre, from the University Hospital of Lausanne, focused on patients diagnosed with a condition referred to as "major depressive disorder with atypical characteristics." Such patients tend to experience humor elevations in reaction to positive events.
Such men and women, researchers found, face a particularly high risk for the development of obesity, and to maintain extra weight even after recovering from their depressive condition.
Lasserre team, suggests that doctors should be particularly careful when prescribing stimulating appetite medications to these patients.
