Why do we feel obliged to comment on each other's appearance when we meet after an absence of several months? But since we do, especially when we see family members at holiday gatherings, how do we handle weight gain, either ours or that of someone else? If your family is typical, there will be someone named Tiny whose weight has occasionally topped 350 pounds, or a distant cousin coming off or just going on the latest diet fad. Often there is also at least one relative who feels obliged to make everyone aware that she (and it is usually a she) has noticed that you have gained weight.
Well, what does one do when the weight gain was not caused by a 14-day cruise, a new job as a pastry chef or the inability to exercise due to a bad back? What does one say when the weight gain was caused by medication taken for an emotional disorder such as depression, panic attacks, anxiety, or cyclical mood swings? Do you really want to explain to cousin Shirley or aunt Josephine that you are taking Zoloft or Lexapro or Depakote and the drug caused you to put on 20, 30 or maybe even 70 pounds since last Christmas? Do you want to spend time explaining that the emotional problem causing you to take the medication has been helped, but now you are left with many unwanted pounds?
Unfortunately, relatively few people are aware of the weight-gaining potential of antidepressants and similar medications. Most of us know that if we have to go on prednisone (cortisone) for a medical problem such as severe asthma or Crohn's disease, one of the side effects is weight gain. And when the weight gain occurs, few people would blame it on lack of will power, understanding instead that sometimes the weight gain is unavoidable. But the weight gain caused by treatment with antidepressants, mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotic medication is rarely recognized by physicians, let alone your distant relatives. Indeed, if people were asked about the usual side effects of these medications, they might list dry mouth, impotence and tiredness, but not weight gain.
The reason aunt Josephine and cousin Shirley don't know about this cause of weight gain is that very little attention is paid to it in discussions about the "obesity epidemic" or in television shows devoted to helping fat people become thin. Has any reality show had volunteers who were thin until they started on Zyprexa or Respiradel? Have any television medical show hosts gone to a meetings of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and met members who are carrying 75 or 100 extra pounds because of their medication? Have well-meaning public figures mentioned the severe weight gain seen among school children because they are taking medication for pediatric bipolar disorder? Do national weight-loss organizations such as Weight Watchers address this problem in their meetings?
I am a co-author of a book offering a weight-loss program for people who have gained weight on antidepressants and thus receive e-mails from people frustrated and angered because neither their psychiatrists nor nutritionists understand the impact of antidepressants on their eating.
"Eat less, exercise more" or "Stop eating carbohydrates and just eat lean protein" are typical comments told by their physicians to the people who write to me. Many of the people who have gained weight were thin before going on their medication and always ate and exercised appropriately. But the medications seem to remove their control over eating and leave them too tired to engage in much physical activity. Moreover, advice to stop eating carbohydrates is counterproductive in the extreme.
Eating carbohydrates (except those from fruit) allows the brain to make new serotonin. Eliminating carbohydrates prevents this from occurring. What is the point of prescribing antidepressant medication that works on serotonin and then telling the patient to follow a diet preventing serotonin from being made? Moreover, increasing serotonin increases satiety and helps turn off the excessive appetite turned on by the medications.
Perhaps the solution to the media silence about weight gain and antidepressants is telling the audience, i.e. the aunt Josephines and cousin Shirleys, about the problem. Our relatives don't have difficulty understanding the connection between prednisone and weight gain, and they shouldn't have a problem with accepting the connection between medications that affect brain chemistry and weight gain. Perhaps when all our relatives recognize the connection between antidepressants and obesity, those people committed to solving the problem of obesity will too.
Follow Judith J. Wurtman, PhD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stopmed_wt_gain
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For me, it isn't a 'fix-me-now' solution. I don't have any other solution. I am not lazy, and I don't have a problem living a very active lifestyle. I enjoy it. But if I don't take the drugs, I can't survive.
For some of us, it isn't as simple as 'diet and exercise'. I wish it were...
I dislike Big Pharma and their business model as much as anyone, but medicines (especially mood stabilizers and anti-depressants) do not appear out of thin air. Withholding any of them from market, without a significant direct health impact (stroke, heart, blood, etc), is not the solution.
Besides gaining weight, the people I worked with became crazy. I had never thought of them as crazy before. I feel it was these medications exacerbates the problem.
And what is the correct amount of serotonin. No one knows.
Also these medications where supposed to be taken for a few months. But most people have been on them for years.
I don't take psych meds anymore. instead I choose to exercise self control and other self-talk/talk-therapy methods instead. I can't believe that medical professionals believe having a bit more stable moods is worth the health risks associated with obesity and those associated with constantly taking medication of that type (liver problems, seizures if you go off it quickly, etc.) It wasn't worth it to me, but I wasn't given the information to make an informed choice.
I've been struggling with this issue for nearly 10 years. I gained 50 pounds in the first year of taking antidepressant and anti-anxiety meds and I still haven't been able to lose the weight. I also have a physical disability which precludes most exercise (other than swimming) but it's the weight gained as a side effect of the meds that frustrates me most because many of the people in my life just don't understand the issue. It's very real, very frustrating, and rarely discussed in the media or by health care providers (at least mine).
So thank you for giving me a much needed resource to help explain the issue to the people in my life who don't understand.
Precursors to neurotransmitters, certain Amino Acids, cannot be patented since they are naturally occuring. From personal experience, they are one of the best ways to increase Seratonin and Dopamine without all of the nasty side effects.
Unfortunately, Big Pharma can't cash in on this method and doesn't want you to know about it..How many doctors do you know who blindly prescribe antidepressants without taking the time to actually TEST your neurotransmitter levels first? This test is easy and cheap, yet so overlooked. So, essentially doctors are playing a guessing game based on a patient's symptoms.
As for using carbohydrates to raise seratonon levels, this is so difficult to do correctly because the ingestion of fat and protein can throw off your end goal. If you want to lose weight yet are too depressed to exercise, start off eating healthly unprocessed foods with good fats and lean protein. Then get your neurotransmitter levels tested to determine what amino acids to take or avoid depending on your VERY specific brain chemistry. An added bonus, you don't have to take these forever. My Amino Acid therapy lasted two months and I recommend it to everyone who is considering the dangerous road of antidepressants. If it doesn't work for you, there is a pharmacy that will gladly take your cash to make you feel happy.
I am puzzled by your ability to have your neurotransmitter levels measured since there is really no non-invasive ( going into the brain) way of doing this. Neurotransmitter levels in the blood don't tell you anything about what is going on in the brain. It would be wonderful if we could have a way of measuring neurotransmitters in the brain, but that is not possible now and anyway who claims to be doing so should prove it by producing research that he or she has done and published. This is why doctors don't test your neurotransmitter levels. The levels won't tell you anything.
Below is some information from their website.
https://www.neurorelief.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=9&Itemid=51
The test that I took was a urine test. I was not to eat/drink anything, and collect the secord urination of the day. My results were textbook to my symptomology. They had no idea what my symptoms were other than anxiety. I wrote the code in myself. The results speak for themselves in my case. This has been the only test and treatment protocol to offer any help and I have tried just about everything. My doctor is from Europe and helps people from all over the world.
I'm not everyone, and I don't encourage the use of anti-depressants. For me it took many years of pain and denial *before* getting to this place, and seeking help, not the other way around. It is a deeply personal choice.