Is Your Medicine Cabinet Widening Your Waistline?
Common meds that cause weight gain and how to keep it from happening
Did you know that the medicine that’s calming your anxiety or the one that’s helping dull the pain from that toothache could be making you fat? So says Dr. Joseph Colella, weight loss expert, bariatric surgeon, and author of Skinny People Just Don’t Get It.
We asked the doc to pinpoint four common medicines and their bulge-inducing side-effects. Read on to find out if any of them are in your medicine cabinets.
“Another tricky and surprising class of medications that is an appetite stimulant is the group known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS, commonly known as aspirin, Ibuprofen, and naproxen, to name just a few,” Colella says. “These medications are often used for joint pain or arthritis and often result in a low grade gastritis or inflammation of the stomach. This irritation tends to simulate ‘hunger pangs’ which is why it’s recommended you take these types of meds with food, thereby making you eat more.”
Dr. Colella says if you absolutely must take one of these meds, you can also protect your stomach from inflammation with one of the many acid-reducing medications available.
