{"id":8833,"date":"2024-07-01T22:13:47","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T22:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=8833"},"modified":"2024-07-01T22:24:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T22:24:18","slug":"do-antidepressants-cause-weight-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=8833","title":{"rendered":"Do Antidepressants Cause Weight Gain?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

A new study tracked weight changes associated with eight popular drugs.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Weight gain has long been a common side effect of antidepressants, but some of them are more likely to add pounds than others, according to a new study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The study, published on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed the electronic health records of more than 183,000 U.S. patients who were considered first-time antidepressant users and tracked their weight for 24 months.<\/p>\n

After six months, patients who took Lexapro, Paxil or Cymbalta had a higher risk, 10 to 15 percent, of gaining a clinically significant amount of weight, defined as at least 5 percent of their baseline weight, compared with users of Zoloft. Those taking Wellbutrin were less likely to experience this type of weight gain. The study included both the brand name and generic forms of each medication.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of patients are concerned about gaining excess weight when they\u2019re taking an antidepressant,\u201d said Joshua Petimar, who is an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and the lead author of the study. That may be especially true of patients with a pre-existing health condition like diabetes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

In addition, some patients might stop taking their antidepressant \u2014 even if it\u2019s effective \u2014 because they don\u2019t like that they\u2019ve gained weight. \u201cThat also can kind of lead to a host of adverse outcomes like increased risk of hospitalization or relapse of symptoms,\u201d Dr. Petimar said.<\/p>\n

In the study, at six months the patients who took Lexapro or Paxil gained about a pound more on average than those who took Zoloft, which was the most commonly prescribed among the eight antidepressants that were tracked. People who took Cymbalta, Effexor or Celexa also initially put on more weight than did users of Zoloft, but in each case it was less than a pound. Those who took Wellbutrin, however, put on less weight than those who took Zoloft.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study tracked weight changes associated with eight popular drugs.Weight gain has long been a common side effect of antidepressants, but some of them are more likely to add pounds than others, according to a new study.The study, published on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed the electronic health records of more than 183,000 U.S. patients who were considered first-time antidepressant users and tracked their weight for 24 months.After six months, patients who took Lexapro, Paxil or Cymbalta had a higher risk, 10 to 15 percent, of gaining a clinically significant amount of weight, defined as at least 5 percent of their baseline weight, compared with users of Zoloft. Those taking Wellbutrin were less likely to experience this type of weight gain. The study included both the brand name and generic forms of each medication.\u201cA lot of patients are concerned about gaining excess weight when they\u2019re taking an antidepressant,\u201d said Joshua Petimar, who is an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and the lead author of the study. That may be especially true of patients with a pre-existing health condition like diabetes.In addition, some patients might stop taking their antidepressant \u2014 even if it\u2019s effective \u2014 because they don\u2019t like that they\u2019ve gained weight. \u201cThat also can kind of lead to a host of adverse outcomes like increased risk of hospitalization or relapse of symptoms,\u201d Dr. Petimar said.In the study, at six months the patients who took Lexapro or Paxil gained about a pound more on average than those who took Zoloft, which was the most commonly prescribed among the eight antidepressants that were tracked. People who took Cymbalta, Effexor or Celexa also initially put on more weight than did users of Zoloft, but in each case it was less than a pound. Those who took Wellbutrin, however, put on less weight than those who took Zoloft.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8835,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8836,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8833\/revisions\/8836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}