The Connection Between Antidepressants and Weight Loss

The Connection Between Antidepressants and Weight Loss

The link between depression and weight loss has a considerable amount of scholarship behind it. People who are depressed often lurch into unhealthy habits of all kinds, one of which is binge eating, and another of which is cessation of exercise. Taken together, these two changes can lead to an unhealthy level of weight gain.

The question becomes whether antidepressants and weight loss have a connection beyond the elimination of the depression and the changes in behavior. Whether or not that connection exists, eliminating depression is a helpful step that can increase your quality of life substantially.

Antidepressants help you correct the symptoms of your depression. This helps you correct the issues with your appetite so that you can get your weight under control. Some people refer to depression as a sickness, and they are correct. If you are depressed, you do not lack motivation, and you are not lazy. You might come across that way to others, but those are just the symptoms of your problem. Many of the people who think that depression is not an illness are going to think that you are crazy when you begin to seek treatment and make your life more palatable.

Quite a few antidepressants treat depression, panic disorders and anxiety. Because gaining weight is one of the most common symptoms of depression, the connection between antidepressants and weight loss appears to be a strong one, and a medication like Paxil or Wellbutrin corrects the depression symptoms. When those symptoms go away with the medication, the hunger pushing your weight vanishes as well, and the result is a loss in weight.

For some people, antidepressants affect your weight more than others. If you find that your weight loss skyrockets to an unhealthy level, it is important to check in with your physician to demonstrate your concern. Antidepressants do work on the brain. However, they also led to diarrhea, leading to malabsorption of nutrients in the stomach, and you lose calories — and lose weight in the process.

About 30 days ago, I began a prescription for Wellbutrin. The results have been amazing! I already have clothes looser than they were before I started this medicine. Wellbutrin also controls my sense of depression, but I still experience some blues now and then. My physician told me to add Paxil to my morning routine. He asked me about my appetite, because Paxil cuts appetite in some people.

Another way to lose weight is to make sure you get plenty of sleep. My doctor prescribed 100 mg of Trazadone for me. That made it easy to go to sleep, but I would still wake up at night. I have insomnia that is significant. For effective weight loss, you need proper sleep levels.

Weight loss does not occur with everyone on antidepressants. Instead, about 10 percent of people who take them notice an appetite drop. Sometimes it is temporary, but some people have this as a permanent side effect while they are taking the drug. Antidepressants and weight loss have many health benefits for you.