Antidepressants are used widely in the US. Doctors may write scripts for depression or anxiety. Either leads to a common set of medications.
On average, 13% of American adults take antidepressants.(1) The highest usage is among non-Hispanic whites (16%) and women over age 60 (24%).
Overweight is an even more common issue. Some 73% of Americans are overweight according to the CDC, and 43% are obese.(2) Obviously, these percentages are much higher than the number of Americans taking antidepressants, so we cannot blame the weight problem entirely on these drugs. However, the drugs don’t help with the weight problem.
A new report on Medscape highlights the fact that some of the leading antidepressants are associated with weight gain. In the study, patients were randomly assigned to 8 different medications. Sertraline was used as the baseline.
- Escitalopram, duloxetine, paroxetine, and venlafaxine were associated with significant weight gain relative to sertraline.
- Buproprion was associated with lower weight gain relative to sertraline.
Escitalopram, paroxetine, and duloxetine users were 10%-15% more likely to gain at least 5% of their baseline weight compared with sertraline users.(3)
A prior study, in 2016, associated buproprion with modest long-term weight loss — the only antidepressant to produce this result.
“We found that bupropion is the only antidepressant that tends to be linked to weight loss over 2 years,” study leader David Arterburn, MD, Group Health Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, said in a Group Health Research Institute news release. “All other antidepressants are linked to varying degrees of weight gain.”(4)
It would seem that the choice of antidepressant can make it harder to lose weight.
Source: Antidepressants and Weight Control – CRAIN’S COMMENTS







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