With any of the medications whether anti depressants or antipsychotics there is a chance of metabolic changes of the body, and to place blame on a patient for being depressed and not taking care of self is junk science commentary.

I gained weight on Xanax a benzo, my daughter gained on Zyprexa, and I know someone else who developed diabetes while on Prozac and Effexor.

It is quite an interesting medical link and it's not off base to question the weight gain and diabetes link with chemical/drug use.

And certainly is not an anti med discussion, it's a discussion ahead of it's time to question this, and pharma and doctors will be the last ones to blame a med for diabetes [as with Zyprexa for example]. It's always the patient lifestyle or patient's "fault" when these side effect/adverse reactions show up.

This is why all patients/consumers must do a complete baseline blood work up before any psych med is taken in my opinion.CBC, liver function,lipid panel,thyroid, blood pressure, and weight. Add the medications and see if things change at all in a monthly blood work up.

Sadly most of these meds, in the dtc commercials, make it the responsibilty of the patient to tell the doctor if he or she has any health problems or predispositions to them. Also these drugs are marketed as "curing" depression partly by making people more active, i.e. more likely to exercise, when in fact they sedate people causing or exacerbating lethargy that it would seem could cause diabetes. Otherwise, this article is shocking. Could it be that these drugs cause diabetes by changing metabolism? Nah Stehpany is right, the patient will be blamed, not followed up medically. I always thought it was odd there wasn't a blood test to measure my serotonin levels while I was on these drugs that supposedly made them normal, sort of like a diabetic taking insulin with no way to monitor blood suger, turns out not only can't they measure serotonin levels but they don't know what the correlation between serotonin and depression is. Aye yi yi!

Stephany,

I remember expressing concern to my psychiatrist about problems that wouldn't be caught as I was on a 3 med coctail that eventually became 4 med. My p-doc said the yearly physical was sufficient. Yeah right!

Then I remember another time I decided I didn't want to wait for my physical as someone on an email list I belonged to said her friend unexpectedly died from side effects due to psych meds.

When I called my internist's office, they said the psychiatrist had to order the blood tests. I think I just gave up as I was tired of all the BS.

But if my experience is common and I think it is based on what I have read, it is no wonder people are developing problems.

Yup, blame it on the patient whevever you can.

My tapering off of meds certainly hasn't been easy but when I read stories like this, I thank god every day I made the decision to taper off of psych meds. I should be complete off within 16 months to 2 years.

AA

yeah, regarding blood work/labs; i just had my PCP do a complete panel, all work came back normal, thankfully, but i even made sure to have it fasting glucose. pdoc never ordered the tests. at least my liver isn't shot from the xanax for 9 years!