What Prescription Drugs Make You Gain Weight?

Written by Stephanie Booth

• Depression Medications
• Mood Stabilizers
• Diabetes Medicines
• Corticosteroids
• Drugs That Prevent Seizures and Migraines
• ‘Beta Blocker’ Heart Medicines
• Allergy Relievers
• More

You watch what you eat and fit regular workouts into your schedule. So why is the number on your scale going up instead of down? The reason might lie in your bathroom cabinet.

“As many as 10% to 15% of weight issues are related to medications,” says Louis Aronne, MD, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Some meds can make you feel hungrier. Others slow your body’s ability to burn calories or cause you to hold onto extra fluids.

The effects aren’t the same for everybody, though. “One person might gain 15 pounds on one drug. Another might not gain anything,” Aronne says.

If you suspect the medicines that you take are behind your weight gain, don’t go off them before you talk to your doctor. “You might need to be on that drug to save your life,” says Donald Waldrep, MD, co-director of The Center for Weight Loss Surgery at Los Robles Hospital.

You may be able to switch to another medication, including one that can even help you shed pounds. If not, your doctor can suggest what you should do to offset the weight gain.

“There’s evidence that a low-carb diet and more exercise may help,” says Sue DeCotiis, MD, a board-certified internist who specializes in medical weight loss.

Below are some types of medicines that may be the cause of your expanding waistline. It’s not a complete list, so speak to your doctor if you have any concerns about your prescriptions.

Which ones:

• citalopram (Celexa)
• fluoxetine (Prozac)
• fluvoxamine (Luvox)
• mirtazapine (Remeron)
• paroxetine (Paxil)
• sertraline (Zoloft)

Your doctor may call these “SSRIs” (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) or “tricyclic antidepressants. ” They boost the amount of certain “feel good” chemicals in your brain. Some of those chemicals also control your appetite and how your body breaks down calories.

“You might eat but not feel full,” DeCotiis says. “Or you might lay down more fat even if you’re not eating more.” That’s the case especially in the long run. Some depression drugs may cause you to gain as much as 24 pounds in a year.

Keep in mind that depression itself can affect your appetite and eating habits. Your doctor or counselor can help you with that.

Which ones:

• clozapine (Clozaril)
• lithium (Eskalith, Lithobid)
• olanzapine (Zyprexa)
• quetiapine (Seroquel)
• risperidone (Risperdal)

These drugs help treat mental health conditions like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. They “directly affect your brain and will affect your weight and metabolism,” DeCotiis says.

Mood stabilizers cause your appetite to turn on and stay on. Some may cause as much as an 11-pound weight gain in 10 weeks. People taking them for a long time may gain more.

Which ones:

• glimepiride (Amaryl)
• glipizide (Glucotrol)
• glyburide (Diabeta, Micronase)
• insulin
• nateglinide (Starlix)
• pioglitazone (Actos)
• repaglinide (Prandin)

Diabetes medications control blood sugar levels in different ways. Some make you more sensitive to insulin. Others cause your body to release more insulin before or after meals.

It’s normal to gain weight when you first start taking them, while your body adjusts to the medicine. But “some of the older drugs basically vacuum calories into fat cells,” Aronne says. Weight gain can be especially frustrating for people with type 2 diabetes who were already overweight.

Your doctor can help you figure out if you might do better with another drug, or what lifestyle changes you may need to make.

Which ones:

• methylprednisolone (Medrol)
• prednisolone (Orapred, Pediapred, Prelone, and others)
• prednisone (Deltasone, Prednicot, Sterapred, and others)

Corticosteroids reduce pain and inflammation. They’re different than the steroids bodybuilders take to build muscle.

You can take them as shots, rub them into your skin as a cream, inhale them as a spray, or take them by mouth. Because they also affect metabolism, “taking them for a long time may give you a bigger appetite and cause your body to hold onto more fat, especially around the belly,” DeCotiis says.

Which ones:

• amitriptyline (Elavil)
• nortriptyline (Aventyl, Pamelor)
• valproic acid (Depacon, Depakote, Stavzor)

Medicines that stop migraine headaches and seizures affect hormones that control hunger and make it harder for your body to sense when it’s full.

“They can up your appetite, lower your metabolism, and cause your body to hang on to extra fluids,” Waldrep says. In one study, people who took valproic acid (Depakote) even had more fast-food cravings.

Which ones:

• acebutolol (Sectral)
• atenolol (Tenormin)
• metoprolol (Lopressor, Toprol XL)
• propranolol (Inderal)

Beta blockers ease stress on your heart by slowing its rate and lowering blood pressure. “But that decreases your body’s reaction to exercise so you won’t burn as many calories,” DeCotiis says. Because beta blockers make you feel tired, you might not have the energy to work out, which can also cause your weight to rise.

Which ones:

• cetirizine (Zyrtec)
• diphenhydramine (Benadryl)
• fexofenadine (Allegra)
• loratadine (Claritin)

Over-the-counter allergy meds block the action of histamine, a chemical your body makes that causes many of the symptoms of allergies. Blocking histamine with an antihistamine like diphenhydramine may lead to weight gain.

Top Picks

What Prescription Drugs Make You Gain Weight?

Written by Stephanie Booth

• Depression Medications
• Mood Stabilizers
• Diabetes Medicines
• Corticosteroids
• Drugs That Prevent Seizures and Migraines
• ‘Beta Blocker’ Heart Medicines
• Allergy Relievers
• More

You watch what you eat and fit regular workouts into your schedule. So why is the number on your scale going up instead of down? The reason might lie in your bathroom cabinet.

“As many as 10% to 15% of weight issues are related to medications,” says Louis Aronne, MD, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Some meds can make you feel hungrier. Others slow your body’s ability to burn calories or cause you to hold onto extra fluids.

The effects aren’t the same for everybody, though. “One person might gain 15 pounds on one drug. Another might not gain anything,” Aronne says.

If you suspect the medicines that you take are behind your weight gain, don’t go off them before you talk to your doctor. “You might need to be on that drug to save your life,” says Donald Waldrep, MD, co-director of The Center for Weight Loss Surgery at Los Robles Hospital.

You may be able to switch to another medication, including one that can even help you shed pounds. If not, your doctor can suggest what you should do to offset the weight gain.

“There’s evidence that a low-carb diet and more exercise may help,” says Sue DeCotiis, MD, a board-certified internist who specializes in medical weight loss.

Below are some types of medicines that may be the cause of your expanding waistline. It’s not a complete list, so speak to your doctor if you have any concerns about your prescriptions.

Which ones:

• citalopram (Celexa)
• fluoxetine (Prozac)
• fluvoxamine (Luvox)
• mirtazapine (Remeron)
• paroxetine (Paxil)
• sertraline (Zoloft)

Your doctor may call these “SSRIs” (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) or “tricyclic antidepressants.” They boost the amount of certain “feel good” chemicals in your brain. Some of those chemicals also control your appetite and how your body breaks down calories.

“You might eat but not feel full,” DeCotiis says. “Or you might lay down more fat even if you’re not eating more.” That’s the case especially in the long run. Some depression drugs may cause you to gain as much as 24 pounds in a year.

Keep in mind that depression itself can affect your appetite and eating habits. Your doctor or counselor can help you with that.

Which ones:

• clozapine (Clozaril)
• lithium (Eskalith, Lithobid)
• olanzapine (Zyprexa)
• quetiapine (Seroquel)
• risperidone (Risperdal)

These drugs help treat mental health conditions like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. They “directly affect your brain and will affect your weight and metabolism,” DeCotiis says.

Mood stabilizers cause your appetite to turn on and stay on. Some may cause as much as an 11-pound weight gain in 10 weeks. People taking them for a long time may gain more.

Which ones:

• glimepiride (Amaryl)
• glipizide (Glucotrol)
• glyburide (Diabeta, Micronase)
• insulin
• nateglinide (Starlix)
• pioglitazone (Actos)
• repaglinide (Prandin)

Diabetes medications control blood sugar levels in different ways. Some make you more sensitive to insulin. Others cause your body to release more insulin before or after meals.

It’s normal to gain weight when you first start taking them, while your body adjusts to the medicine. But “some of the older drugs basically vacuum calories into fat cells,” Aronne says. Weight gain can be especially frustrating for people with type 2 diabetes who were already overweight.

Your doctor can help you figure out if you might do better with another drug, or what lifestyle changes you may need to make.

Which ones:

• methylprednisolone (Medrol)
• prednisolone (Orapred, Pediapred, Prelone, and others)
• prednisone (Deltasone, Prednicot, Sterapred, and others)

Corticosteroids reduce pain and inflammation. They’re different than the steroids bodybuilders take to build muscle.

You can take them as shots, rub them into your skin as a cream, inhale them as a spray, or take them by mouth. Because they also affect metabolism, “taking them for a long time may give you a bigger appetite and cause your body to hold onto more fat, especially around the belly,” DeCotiis says.

Which ones:

• amitriptyline (Elavil)
• nortriptyline (Aventyl, Pamelor)
• valproic acid (Depacon, Depakote, Stavzor)

Medicines that stop migraine headaches and seizures affect hormones that control hunger and make it harder for your body to sense when it’s full.

“They can up your appetite, lower your metabolism, and cause your body to hang on to extra fluids,” Waldrep says. In one study, people who took valproic acid (Depakote) even had more fast-food cravings.

Which ones:

• acebutolol (Sectral)
• atenolol (Tenormin)
• metoprolol (Lopressor, Toprol XL)
• propranolol (Inderal)

Beta blockers ease stress on your heart by slowing its rate and lowering blood pressure. “But that decreases your body’s reaction to exercise so you won’t burn as many calories,” DeCotiis says. Because beta blockers make you feel tired, you might not have the energy to work out, which can also cause your weight to rise.

Which ones:

• cetirizine (Zyrtec)
• diphenhydramine (Benadryl)
• fexofenadine (Allegra)
• loratadine (Claritin)

Over-the-counter allergy meds block the action of histamine, a chemical your body makes that causes many of the symptoms of allergies. Blocking histamine with an antihistamine like diphenhydramine may lead to weight gain.

Top Picks

How to slow down metabolism if you can’t gain weight?

30 April 2019

12 April 2023

4 minutes

6152

ProWellness

Table of contents

• Metabolism symptoms
• Several ways to slow down metabolism
• Proper diet
• Medication method
• Some useful tips

90 002 Disclaimer

Please note that all information posted on the site
Prowellness is provided for informational purposes only and is not a personal program, a direct recommendation for action, or medical advice. Do not use these materials for diagnosis, treatment, or any medical procedure. Consult your physician before using any technique or using any product. This site is not a specialized medical portal and does not replace the professional advice of a specialist. The Site Owner is not liable to any party who has suffered indirect or direct damage as a result of misuse of materials posted on this resource.

How can you slow down your metabolism if you can’t gain weight?

Most people dream of speeding up their metabolism and losing weight. But there is also the opposite desire: you need to gain weight, slow down your metabolism.

There are several ways to slow down the process, but it is also important not to harm your health. Accelerated metabolism is a feature of a particular organism, not a pathology. In some cases, this is a sign of health problems.

Symptoms of accelerated metabolism

People with a fast metabolism can be recognized by their appearance. For them, the whole problem is to gain weight and muscle mass. Usually these are people with high stature, naturally thin physique. But sometimes the metabolic process is accelerated for some external reason.

Symptoms of an accelerated metabolism are:

• increased feeling of hunger or its complete absence;
• excessive thinness;
• inability to gain weight and muscle mass even with increased nutrition;
• feeling tired, lethargic;
• clearly visible veins on the body;
• increased nervousness, irritability.

The reasons for an accelerated metabolism can be very different:

• failures in the hormonal system;
• thyroid diseases;
• violations in the work of the pancreas.

To find out the cause, it is recommended to consult a doctor.

Several ways to slow down metabolism

There are several methods for slowing down the process. You can use several at once, but in any case it is better if the doctor prescribes the treatment. Often, effective therapy depends entirely on addressing the underlying cause. Lifestyle also plays an important role.

Proper diet

Nutritional adjustment is the first effective method. There are several foods that effectively slow down your metabolism. The problem is that most of these products have significant health side effects. Therefore, you should eat them regularly, but in moderation. These products include:

• sugar;
• pasta;
• bread;
• baked goods and confectionery;
• nuts, cereals, seeds;
• fatty foods.

Attention! At the time of therapy, energy drinks, tea, coffee should be abandoned. Exclude citrus fruits, bitter chocolate, spices.

Medical method

If nutrition correction does not have the desired effect, pharmacy preparations can be used. For example, athletes with a naturally thin physique use special protein-carbon cocktails to gain mass. They consist of fast carbohydrates and short protein chains.

Attention! There are some drugs that have weight gain, slow metabolism as a side effect. These are hormonal preparations containing estrogen, as well as some medicines that lower the acidity of the stomach.

Another helper to the body is drugs that affect the secretion of insulin. But in any case, it is better if medication is prescribed by a doctor who will find out the cause of the problem itself.

Some useful tips

If you need to gain weight and lower your metabolic rate, then you can put into practice the following tips:

• reduce the time of daily sleep by a couple of hours – this will lead to the production of cortisol (stress hormone), the body will begin to slow down metabolism and store energy for future use;
• Ambient temperature must be between 22-28°C;
• limit physical activity for a certain period of time so that the body begins to store nutrients;
• moderately reduce the amount of fluid consumed.

Many advise making a faster metabolism your friend and simply eating better and more. Do not experiment if the problem is not a consequence of the disease.

Disclaimer

Please note that all information posted on the site
Prowellness is provided for informational purposes only and is not a personal program, a direct recommendation for action, or medical advice. Do not use these materials for diagnosis, treatment, or any medical procedure. Consult your physician before using any technique or using any product. This site is not a specialized medical portal and does not replace the professional advice of a specialist. The Site Owner is not liable to any party who has suffered indirect or direct damage as a result of misuse of materials posted on this resource.

Expert: Ekaterina Podvalenchuk Expert in nutrition and health

Reviewer: Ekaterina Vorobieva Adept of a healthy and active lifestyle

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Expensive, wild and unsafe – Ogonyok No.

40 (5585) dated 10/14/2019

1K

1

1 min.

…

Radical methods of struggle for life extension cause great controversy: some see them as a leap into the future, others as a sure way to cripple themselves. Here are just some of the shocking experiments. The drug (at that time it had only been tested on laboratory mice) contained the telomerase gene. This, recall, is an enzyme that regulates the length of telomeres (chromosome ends), which, in turn, determines the lifespan of a cell. The therapy cost more than a million dollars. Since the injection of the gene preparation was made illegally, official medicine did not undertake to evaluate the results of the intervention, for this reason it is impossible to confirm or refute the effect. However, Liz Parrish herself, who owns a biomedical company, claims that her biological age has decreased by 20 years. According to unofficial data, several more people underwent therapy who did not want to advertise the treatment for aging.

Drown and forget

Biohackers are happy to test all sorts of new methods on themselves that have made it possible to extend the life of laboratory animals. This includes different ways of hunger strikes and radical diets, young blood transfusions, “rejuvenation” with stem cells, and so on. One of the most famous experimenters of this kind was the CEO of Ascendance Biomedical, Aaron Traivik. Last year, he was found dead in a flotation therapy tank, a relaxation technique that involves diving into a small indoor pool of salt water that keeps the body afloat, creating a feeling of weightlessness.

Eat pills

A handful of pills is included in the daily diet of advanced biohackers. What do they hope for? Mainly on drugs that slow down the metabolism.