Health counselors promote healthy eating choices and habits, engaging in exercises and observing bedtime routines to lower risks of having medical problems. Yet in many cases, especially in the US in which more than 40 percent of the population are obese while about 30 percent are already overweight, it’s apparent that there is low motivation to make changes for the better. The projection is that once the overweight people develop any of the common obesity-related disorders, they will have to take medications that will increase their risks of becoming obese in a few years time.
Mental Health Medications Can Slow Down Metabolism
Studies show that there are mental health medications that tend to slow down metabolism. Slow metabolism in turn, impacts the body’s ability to burn down calories, since there is low demand for energy use.
Metabolism involves all the chemical processes in converting nutrients that build life, starting from the cellular level. Metabolism can influence a person’s weight or energy level, but a person’s mental health can likewise influence metabolism.
Most clinically prescribed medicines that tend to slow down metabolism are those that help people cope with mental health problems such as depression or anxiety attacks.
Although mental illness can result in low energy, it can also be accompanied by increased craving for food. Moreover, intakes of medications like anti-depressants or anti-psychotics drug, will intensify the struggle to make lifestyle changes.
Opinions of Medical Experts about Mental Health Meds
Dr. Louis Aronne of Weill Cornell Medical College, who is the Director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center says that about 10 to 15 percent of weight problems are results of medications. That is why it’s important to watch what we eat and to incorporate regular workouts our schedule. Yet even if we do so, there are cases when we need tp take medications that make us feel better but tend to make us feel hungrier.
On top of that we may also be taking meds that slow down our body’s ability to convert nutrients into fuel or energy. Some other medicines make our body retain extra fluids.
Dr. Aronne says that the effects of medicines are not the same or produce the same results for everyone.While a medication may cause weight gain in one person, another person taking the same medication might not experience weight gain at all.
Still, at Los Robles Hospital, Dr. Donald Waldrep of the Center for Weight Loss Surgery gives advice that If there are indications that your medication is making you gain weight, don’t go off the medication without consulting your physician. There is always the possibility that the medicine in question could be your life saver. Your physician may know of other treatment or alternative therapy that can even help you lose weight.
Eating low-carb diets for one and increasing your exercise regimen; or even approving a weight loss supplement that specializes in improving slow metabolism, are some examples of alternative remedies. See this helpfull review about Alpilean, a recently launched weight loss product that works by addressing slow metabolism as the main cause of a problematic calorie-burning process.