Medications that cause weight gain
I recently gave a talk on weight loss, and at the end of the talk one of the members of the audience told me that she had gained a tremendous amount of weight after being prescribed two antidepressant drugs.
Within two weeks after she began taking Paxil and Xanax, she gained more than 20 pounds. At the end of the two years that she was on these drugs, she had gained 60 pounds to reach a weight of 200 pounds on a 5’2″ frame.
After her doctor took her off the drugs her weight dropped, without dieting, to where she had been before she started taking them. Another member of the audience said that he had been on a diet for three months, had adhered to it strictly, and had not lost one ounce.
He was on medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and he wondered if these drugs could be the reason he couldn’t lose weight.
Antidepressants
These stories prompted me to investigate the relation between drugs and weight gain. I consulted the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR) and found that one of the side effects of Paxil is increased appetite. Paxil is among a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Prozac and Zoloft are also members of this family of drugs.
Weight gain is one of the more common side effects of Prozac, and increased appetite is among the less common or rare side effects of Zoloft. According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology in the year 2000 on “Weight Gain and Antidepressants,” the tricyclic antidepressants such as Elavil, Tofranil and Triavil are the worst offenders in this regard.
Weight gain is among the side effects of each of these in the PDR. The article also indicted the monoamine oxidase (MA) inhibitors such as Nardil, which also has weight gain listed among its side effects in the PDR. Xanax, Effexor, Serzone, Wellbutrin and lithium are antidepressant drugs whose side effects include weight gain or increased appetite.
Other Common Drugs
Antidepressant drugs are not the only drugs that have such side effects. Many of the most common drugs taken by millions of people in the United States have side effects that include weight gain or increased appetite.
For example, some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as Mobic, Indocan, Feldene and Ketoprofen have weight gain or increased appetite as side effects. A sub-set of NSAIDs known as COX-2 inhibitors that include Vioxx (that has been removed from the market) and Celebrex have weight gain among their side effects.
Corticosteroids such as Prednisone and Pedipred cause weight gain. Hormone replacement therapy including Premarin, Prempro and Cenestin have weight gain as a side effect. So also do oral contraceptives. Some drugs for high blood pressure can cause weight gain. These include Corgard, a beta blocker, and Altace, an ACE inhibitor.
The PDR lists weight gain among the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering statin drug, Lipitor. And four other statin drugs – Mevacor, Pravachol, Zocor and Lescol – list thyroid function abnormalities under adverse reactions in their package inserts. The anti-histamines, Claritin, Peractin and Astelin, also have a weight gain effect.
Next week’s article will be about more commonly used drugs that cause weight gain (some of which might surprise you) and how such drugs might be avoided.
Mary Lou Williams, M. Ed., is a lecturer and writer in the field of nutrition. She welcomes inquiries. She can be reached at 267-6480.