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. 2019 Sep;27(9):1539-1544.
doi: 10.1002/oby.22567.

Effectiveness of a Community-Based Weight Management Program for Patients Taking Antidepressants and/or Antipsychotics

Sean Wharton  1   2 , Jennifer L Kuk  2 , Lana Petrova  1 , Peter I Rye  3 , Valerie H Taylor  3   4 , Rebecca A G Christensen  1
Affiliations

Effectiveness of a Community-Based Weight Management Program for Patients Taking Antidepressants and/or Antipsychotics

Sean Wharton et al. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to compare weight loss (WL) outcomes for patients taking antidepressants and/or antipsychotics with those not taking psychiatric medication.

Methods: A total of 17,519 adults enrolled in a lifestyle WL intervention at the Wharton Medical Clinics in Ontario, Canada, were analyzed. Sex-stratified multivariable linear regression analysis was used to examine the association of taking antidepressants, antipsychotics, both, or neither with WL when adjusting for age, initial weight, and treatment time.

Results: Twenty-three percent of patients were taking at least one psychiatric medication. Patients lost a significant amount of weight (P < 0.0001) regardless of psychiatric medication use. Women taking psychiatric medications lost a similar amount of weight as women who were not (P > 0.05). Conversely, men taking antidepressants lost only slightly less weight than men taking both classes or neither class of psychiatric medication (3.2 ± 0.3 kg vs. 5.6 ± 0.9 kg and 4.3 ± 0.1 kg; P < 0.05). However, taking psychiatric medications that cause weight gain was associated with similar significant decreases in weight as taking medications that are weight neutral or associated with WL for both sexes (P > 0.05).

Conclusions: Results of this study suggest that those who participate in a weight management program can lose significant amounts of weight regardless of psychiatric medication use.

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