A short time ago, I was consulted by a patient who was going through a rough time. I suggested she see a psychiatrist. She took my counsel and made an appointment.

Three months later, I saw her again and she had a new chief complaint. She had gained 25 lbs. After performing a follow-up intervention by getting detailed information on her medical, social, and familial histories in addition to her nutritional requirements and diet, the answer was clear to me. She seemed to be convinced that the medication which she started taking, Zoloft (sertraline) – to treat her mood disorder, was causing her to put on weight. 

I assured her that after reviewing her histories, it wasn’t the sertraline that was causing her weight gain. I then proceeded to show her how I came to this conclusion. In the medical history: the patient was taking an oral contraceptive for 2 years, and a mood stabilizer (sertraline). Her social history included 2 – 3 mixed drinks daily, 4-5 daily on the weekends and no physical exercise. Her familial history was unremarkable and her nutritional profile consisted of haphazard junk-food consumption due to college life and study habits. Her new “diet” began recently when school began in August.

After showing her clinical data on sertraline’s poor ability to cause weight gain to the effect she had experienced, I turned her attention to her social activities – namely her alcohol consumption, poor diet and lack of activity. I gave her some “homework” to document her lifestyle for 3 weeks with some changes we agreed on and then report back what she had observed.

When I saw her again three weeks later, she had lost 10 lbs. by following the changes we agreed upon. These changes included: minimize the alcohol consumption to 2-3 drinks on the weekends only, increase the natural food content in her diet and limit the junk-food to one day a week, and start doing some aerobic exercise like walking 3 days a week.

Too often we tend to point the finger to the medication as a culprit for our “new” maladies and in some cases, this may be true; however, sometimes this is not the case. We must look at our actions and see if there were any recent changes that contributed to new issues, and try to isolate them for correction.

Until next week, be well.

Dion