The three antidepressants most likely to make you fat - and the two that are the most slimming, according to major study READ MORE: Antidepressants kill your sex life for YEARS after stopping them Do you have a health story? Email us at [email protected] By Cassidy Morrison Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com Published: 22:11 BST, 1 July 2024 | Updated: 22:17 BST, 1 July 2024 e-mail 1 View comments They've been blamed for a host of symptoms — from insomnia to sexual problems.
But a new major study appears to provide evidence for another side effect: weight gain. Harvard researchers studied prescription data from nearly 200,000 US adults and found that those who took the tablets escitalopram, paroxetine, and duloxetine gained up to three pounds after two years taking the drugs. Those on those medications were 10 to 15 percent more likely to gain at least five percent of their starting weight compared to users of five other commonly-prescribed antidepressants, like sertraline.
In comparison, other medications like duloxetine, or Cymbalta, was associated with just a pound of weight gain over a two year period. The above graph shows the difference in average weight gain between all eight antidepressants studied The unpleasant side effect can be enough to convince people to stop taking a potentially life-saving drug All eight drugs studied were associated with some weight gain over a two year period. However, the least amount of weight gain was seen in patients who took .
