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Do Any Kind of Medicines Interfere with Weight Loss? – courierjournal

Posted: March 14, 2017 at 7:44 am

One thing that I pay close attention to when I have a patient seeing me for weight management is what medicines they are currently taking. Medicines, while being very helpful to prevent and treat illness, can have various side effects. Weight gain or difficulty with weight loss is one of these side effects. For instance, type 2 diabetic patients commonly take medicines called sulfonylureas to keep their sugar under control. Examples of these are glipizide and glyburide. While these medications can be effective for blood sugar control, they can often contribute to difficulty losing weight. Since weight loss can be an important way to treat your diabetes, these medicines can interfere with treating an underlying cause of your type 2 diabetes despite the fact that they help bring your blood sugar down. Another diabetic medication that can cause weight gain is one well known to diabetic sufferers, that is insulin. I mentioned on a previous article that insulin can stimulate the storage of sugar into fat. You can imagine that the higher the dosage of insulin required to keep your blood sugar under control, the more potential for weight gain. That is why if I have a type 2 diabetic patient attempting to lose weight, I will often stop or reduce their insulin and sulfonylurea as it will not only promote weight loss but it will help prevent low blood sugars from their dieting attempt. It is important to note that stopping insulin is not an option in type 1 diabetic patients, as this will lead to a life-threatening condition called diabetic ketoacidosis. Nevertheless, proper dieting often reduces the insulin requirement of a type 1 diabetes patient.

Another commonly prescribed class of medications that can hurt weight loss attempts are the psychiatric medicines, such as those used for depression. Not all anti-depressants are known to promote weight gain but weight gain is often a side effect that we see in medicines like amitriptyline, mirtazapine and paroxetine. Yet another class of medications known to hinder weight loss attempts are the beta-blocker medicines. These are medicines which we use to help treat conditions like high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and congestive heart failure. Examples of these are medicines are atenolol and metoprolol. In addition to causing the potential side effect of fatigue, they can contribute to difficulty losing weight.

That being said, this doesnt mean that you should just stop these medicines on your own as they do have clear benefit in numerous health problems. Also, suddenly stopping some of these medicines can cause withdrawal-type symptoms. However, if you are serious about attempting to lose weight, it would be very reasonable to talk to your physician about whether these medicines can either be substituted or have their dose reduced. Sometimes, due to a variety of medical reasons, the answer may be no, but it is worthwhile to bring this up with your doctor.

Dr. Roy Barco welcomes your questions concerning health and wellness. Please Facebook him at http://www.facebook.com/roy.barco.5 where you can submit questions for the column, or write to:

True Medical Group

Shoals Professional Building

203 Avalon Ave, Suite 120

Muscle Shoals, AL 35661

256-286-4026

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Do Any Kind of Medicines Interfere with Weight Loss? - courierjournal


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