Weight gain as a side effect of antidepressants is very common and distressing. Patients may even stop their medication because they have gained so much weight. No one has a good explanation for how these drugs increase eating. Nonetheless, people report never feeling satisfied after a meal and continually craving carbohydrates. Sometimes they find themselves binging.
Our research at MIT, and at a Harvard University hospital weight-management center, helped us develop an effective way of preventing or reversing this weight gain. We know that serotonin, the chemical in the brain that regulates mood, also regulates appetite. Antidepressants work only on the mood function of serotonin and may in some way interfere with the appetite function. The solution to this, based on our research, is to increase the ability of serotonin to turn off the need to eat.
Here are simple tips that will work to prevent antidepressant weight gain. Before you take the medication, learn about the drug and how much weight people typically gain on it. If the medication suggested by your doctor is associated with substantial weight gain, ask if you can switch to another one. This seems obvious, but your doctor may not be thinking of the weight gain side effect when prescribing the drug.
- Before starting on the medication, get weighed and report the number to your physician. Most psychiatrists do NOT have scales in their offices. Be sure your weight is recorded so when you return for follow-up visits and claim that you have gained weight, there is no dispute.
- Learn to tell the difference between being hungry and having an appetite. Hunger is when you must eat immediately and just about any food will satisfy you. Appetite is when you feel like eating but without the urgency of hunger. Your medication will increase your appetite and leave you with the nagging feeling that you want to eat more but won't really make you hungry. A good test of the difference between hunger and appetite is whether you are willing to eat something you really don't like that much. If the answer is yes, you are hungry. If the answer is no, then it is your appetite calling to you. My test food is a protein bar. When I am really hungry, I will gobble it down. When I only have an appetite, I won't even nibble on one.
- Does the medication cause your stomach to produce too much acid? Some medications will do this and the feeling is similar to being hungry. A simple test is to take Tums, or some other over-the-counter preparation, to reduce stomach acidity. If the hungry feeling goes away, then you will know it is a side effect of the medicine on your stomach. Speak to your physician about long-term treatment of this.
- Make more serotonin. This will immediately turn off your appetite, vanquish your cravings and leave you feeling satisfied. The feeling is similar to having your thirst vanish after you drink enough water.
- Serotonin is made after you eat any carbohydrate except the sugar in fruit (fructose). When a starchy or sweet food is digested, the brain receives tryptophan, an amino acid that is used by the brain to make serotonin. Eat about 30 grams of a sweet or starchy food such as breakfast cereal, pretzels, popcorn, rice or soy crackers, graham crackers or Twizzlers.
- Eat the carbohydrate on an empty stomach or at least two hours after you have eaten protein. Protein foods like turkey, chicken, beef, fish, cheese, yogurt and eggs interfere with the ability of tryptophan to get into the brain. If you combine protein foods with carbohydrate, as in a turkey sandwich, no serotonin will be made.
- Choose carbohydrates that contain very little fat. Fat slows digestion and adds unnecessary calories. Chocolate, cookies, ice cream, cake, pie crust, French fries, and chips are NOT good serotonin-producing snacks.
- Avoid eating protein at dinner time if your medications make you snack all evening. By eating only a starchy carbohydrate, like pasta or a large baked potato along with vegetables for dinner, your brain will make enough serotonin to keep you satisfied and full until bedtime.
- Do not, under any circumstance, go on a high protein, low carbohydrate diet. This is a diet for disaster as it prevents serotonin from being made and will only increase your urge to eat and maybe binge.
- Exercise. The increase in serotonin brought about by eating serotonin-producing carbohydrates will increase your energy. Take advantage of this and increase your physical activity, even by a few minutes each day. The combination of no longer feeling an urge to eat and the exercise will allow you to lose weight easily or prevent you from gaining it at all.
Follow Judith J. Wurtman, PhD on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/stopmed_wt_gain
So many drugs are on the market that have not been thoroughly tested. They want the fast money and now use the public as their testing lab. Watch the tv ads, they list some of the side effects. They may cure what ills you but gives you 4 or 5 side effects you didn't bargain for.
www.vitaminsforlife.co.uk/Supplements_for_Depression
topkatnc 58 minutes ago (8:57 AM)
I believe what you say ... I am always open for learning something new from another poster ... Myself ... I have been on antideepressants for years ... and I hate them .. I have cut the dose in half a few years ago ... and I wish I could get off of the for good ................................
Thanks for all the great info ...
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You're so welcome! I have a cousin who also took antidepressants for severe chronic pain, for about three years. It took her a while to get off them, but she did it and now gets just as much relief from OTC pain medication, without the emotional flatlining and chronic IBS and a host of other side effects.
Do check out the website http://www.breggin.com/ Lots of information and support there. I wish you all the luck in the world.
(fanned).
Psychiatric Drug Facts with Dr. Peter Breggin
http://www.breggin.com/
Dr. Breggin is the Psychiatrist who wrote "Talking Back to Prozac", in 1994. He is still the best source of information about all the things that Big Pharma doesn't want you to know and that most doctors don't take the time to research.
He is NOT Tom Cruise or a Scientologist, nor am I.
Obviously, there are some cases of extreme psychiatric disorders where the necessity outweighs the damage done, as the damage to the individual's mind, body and life without them, is even worse than what they cause. Again, maybe 10% of those actually taking them.
SEE:
Are Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs Causing the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America?
www.alternet.org
The specific link has probably expired. Do some Googlong, people. Your life, or the life of someone you care for, could depend on it.
First we had he warning "may cause suicidal thoughts *or actions* in children under eighteen".
Then it was "young adults under age twenty-five".
Not to mention the long term, extreme physical and mental side effects that cause it to be almost impossible to get off these drugs, once you've been on them for a while (length of time varies, but any way you look it, this FACT should cause these drugs to be classified as ADDICTIVE.)
See Psychiatric Drug facts with Dr. Peter Breggin
http://www.breggin .com/
Dr. Breggin, a psychiatrist, wrote "Talking Back to Prozac" in 1994. Since then the devastation wrought by these drugs has exploded a hundred fold. Especially the horrendous and increasingly acceptable practice of medicating children with psychiatric drugs because they're over-active and difficult to control. Rowdy kids are now diagnosed with psychiatric conditions and medicated into being compliant little robots.
And Big Pharm gets richer and richer. It's now common practice to "create" a "disorder" for their new drugs to treat.
Several years ago, Serzone (Nefazadone) was VERY QUIETLY taken off the market, because of associated suicides and suicide attempts. The lawsuit attempting to get Paxil off the market has been ongoing for years.
Big Pharma's pockets are endlessly deep, and they learn from experience.
This is another way of saying that she has no idea whether or not SSRI's "interfere with the appetite function". She's simply making an assumption based on faulty logic: "If SSRI's increase serotonin, and serotonin suppresses appetite, SSRI's MUST "interfere with the appetite function". It's faulty because SSRI's have effects other than increasing serotonin, and it could just as easily be one of those effects as any other. If SSRI's increase insulin secretion, for example, it would increase appetite in a way totally unrelated to their effects on serotonin.
Plus, asserting that antidepressants only work on the mood function of serotonin is pretty questionable, considering that something like 80% of the body's serotonin is in the gut. When I first started taking SSRIs, the most noticeable effects were actually digestive.
That being said, suggestions 5 - 9 are simply absurd. Eating all that sugar and flour is poor nutritional advice for anyone, especially someone with the carb craziness that can come along with SSRIs. Fat and protein are both incredibly important for satiety, not to mention overall health.
If I ate nothing for dinner but a baked potato and some veggies, I would be hungry again within an hour, regardless of my serotonin levels. What ever happened to a nice, wholesome, balanced meal? Baked sweat potato, some veggies sauteed in garlic and olive oil, and a nice cut of wild salmon - now that will keep you full!
http://www.ssristories.com/index.php - Great site. Bookmark it.
Many people find that they lose weight on such a diet, and the weight loss alone changes their metabolism. They also find that their "sweet tooth" resets itself, and sugary foods which they once craved taste repulsively sweet, while foods rich in complex sugars----whole grain breads, dried fruit, nuts, now satisfy the need for something sweet.
http://www.depression-guide.com/ssri-weight-gain.htm
Also, Twizzlers (and graham crackers and some cereals) contain a lot of corn syrup and sugar. Aren't these good bets to boost, rather than reduce, hunger, especially for people who have "hypoglycemic" symptoms (again, atypical depressives)?