Drugs can Mean Weight Gain

Wed, 01 Sep 2010
Not many of us take medicine for common ailments and anticipate that the side effect will be weight gain .

However, there are several medications which can potentially boost your appetite, trigger off bloating or slow down your metabolism .

Steroids are some of the worst offenders and are used in the treatment of asthma, allergies and rheumatoid arthritis. They function by aping hormones in the body which are responsible for your metabolism and immune system. Hence, they aid the suppression of the immune system and lower inflammation in the body.

Moreover, steroids also cause excess sugar to be released into the blood, which gets stored as fat and causes fluid retention.

Patients on steroids have found that they can gain 7 per cent or more weight, with some patients gaining upto two stones on a longer term basis.

If this is your status quo, liaise with your doctor with regard to taking steroids on alternate days, as opposed to daily.

For certain milder conditions, like allergies, patients request switching to a prescription strength aspirin and ibuprofen, which could lower inflammation.

Many type 2 diabetes patients are prescribed drugs known as sulfonylureas, which function by stimulating the body to produce more insulin in order to lower high blood sugar levels.

However, on occasion these drugs cause blood sugars to decline so far that they trigger hunger, which means that the type 2 diabetics on them eat more.

The other diabetes drugs associated with weight gain are Thiazolidinediones.

They make your body more sensitive to insulin in order that it is better able to control blood sugar levels. However, this also makes your body retain salt, triggering swelling and weight gain.

Patients have put on between 6lbs to 10lbs over 12 months on this drug.

The leading diabetes charity, Diabetes UK, states that there several alternatives, including drugs known as prandial glucose regulators and metformin, which appear not to cause the weight gain.

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