Ten million Canadians will face the threat of mental illness this year. For the past fifty years major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and more recently bipolar disorder have been treated with a class of drugs known as antipsychotics. After some research into this field one must ask the question, does the medical profession unfairly treat patients who are prescribed atypical antipsychotics?
Today, the medication being used to treat various disorders is being more critically looked at in the lives of the patients' families.
The patients circumstances may be this: “The doctor tells him/her that he/she has a psychiatric condition that needs to be corrected. However, to do so will put he/she at increased risk for heart attack, stroke and diabetes, as well as conditions including high blood pressure, excess body fat around the waist, abnormal levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, as well as becoming insulin resistant.” Would you take the cure?
A year ago, when first beginning to write this magazine article I was convinced I would find the medical profession unfairly treating patients who were prescribed (atypical) antipsychotics, especially since they were assuredly going to gain weight. Researching, rewriting, and redrafting a year later, I now know that this medication while necessary, places both the patient and the doctor in a catch 22 position.
A Brief History of Antipsychotics
In 1951 Doctors Laborit and Huguenard were the first to clinically use an antipsychotic in Paris, France, by administering the chemical combination Chlorpromazine to a patient for its anesthetic effects during surgery. Soon afterward, Doctors Hamon and Delay in New York City stumbled across the Psychiatric use of this chemical combination and serendipitously uncovered its antipsychotic effects. Between 1954 and 1975, 15 other antipsychotic drugs were introduced in North America. These older antipsychotics had unpleasant side effects such as restlessness, muscle spasms, tremors, dry mouth and constipation; however most of these could be corrected by adjusting the dosage.
In 1991 a new drug compound, brand named Clozapine, ushered in the era of the (atypical or second generation) antipsychotic in North America - heralded as a remarkable improvement for patients with schizophrenia.
Press releases trumpeted the news. “Gone would be the awful side effects.” And yes there were some improvements. However, it became apparent that weight gain was a major side effect and it has remained a health hazard. In response to this side effect, the medical profession blamed the patients, pointing to a perceived life style choice such as supposed inactivity and supposed overeating.
The long term effects of antipsychotics aside, weight gain among them, we should be aware that other prescription drugs and over the counter medications can be equally damaging. There are medicines for conditions such as diabetes high blood pressure, heart disorders, and other illnesses that put weight gain among the side effects on their packaging.
Among the medicines that add weight are top-sellers like the serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, as well as the better known atypical antipsychotics such as Clozaril and Zyprexa. Then there are the antihistamines found in dozens of popular cold, allergy and motion sickness remedies.
These pills are small and weigh almost nothing, but stacked up against a super-sized restaurant meal or a bucket of butter-laced popcorn, or a jumbo cola, any of these pills can pack on the pounds - usually one pound or more a week.
The recent introduction of new "thin" or "obesity pills," does not answer the problem of drugs that put on weight. Thus far, medical experts who look for the cause and effect of the supposed national obesity epidemic seem to overlook the fact that many times the origin of obesity may originate in the medicine chest.
At first, doctors prescribed the Prozac family of popular (SSRIs) or antidepressants for obese people trying to lose weight. However, it was soon realized that any weight loss was short lived and that these drugs really caused long-term weight gain. As a result, these medications actually create their own repeat dollar revenue by keeping patients depressed and overweight.
Sociologist D.G. Robinson (PhD) proclaimed. “This type of (drug induced) weight gain is enough to make anyone depressed.” He did his Postdoctoral work in Human Biochemistry and Societal Obesity at Stanford University in 1972.
Robinson said that, "Scientists are attempting to pinpoint the biochemical mechanism by which these medicinal agents cause weight gain - an average of 22 pounds in the first year.” Many doctors seem to disbelieve this fact.
The Doctors Say
I have recently logged a personal account from one MD who placed a patient on a very low dose of an (atypical) antipsychotic, hoping it would do very little damage. Nonetheless, the patient gained a lot of weight in a short space of time even though the MDs' drug of choice was of real benefit to the patient.
