What can cause sudden weight loss or gain?

Introduction

Sudden weight loss or gain can be influenced by a variety of factors, including medication, psychological conditions, lifestyle changes, and physiological mechanisms. Understanding these factors is crucial for developing effective interventions and managing health outcomes.

Key Insights

Medication-Induced Weight Changes:
- Psychiatric medications, such as antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics, can cause significant weight gain, often due to increased appetite or metabolic changes .
- Some medications, like serotonin reuptake inhibitors, may initially cause weight loss but lead to weight gain with long-term use.
Psychological Factors:
- Stress, depression, and childhood parental loss are associated with weight gain, particularly in women .
- Bipolar spectrum disorders and childhood parental loss can influence sudden weight gain in obese individuals.
Lifestyle and Behavioral Factors:
- Smoking cessation often leads to weight gain due to increased energy intake and decreased metabolic rate.
- Changes in physical activity levels can cause asymmetric weight changes, with reductions in exercise leading to more significant weight gain than the weight loss achieved by increasing exercise.
- Dieting can lead to weight regain, but it does not cause future weight gain beyond what would occur without dieting. It may reflect a susceptibility to weight gain in an obesogenic environment.
Physiological Mechanisms:
- Weight gain can increase intrahepatic triglycerides, leading to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease due to an imbalance in hepatic fatty acid metabolism.
- Consumption of a high-fat diet can induce a proinflammatory response in the hypothalamus, impairing insulin signaling and leading to weight gain.
- Sleep deprivation increases ghrelin levels and feelings of hunger, potentially leading to weight gain.

Conclusion

Sudden weight loss or gain can result from a complex interplay of medication effects, psychological conditions, lifestyle changes, and physiological mechanisms. Psychiatric medications and smoking cessation are significant contributors to weight gain, while stress and childhood experiences also play a role. Lifestyle factors, such as physical activity and dieting behaviors, influence weight changes, and physiological responses to diet and sleep deprivation further complicate weight management. Understanding these factors is essential for developing targeted interventions to manage and prevent sudden weight changes.

What can cause sudden weight loss or gain?

Summary

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

Epidemiology, implications and mechanisms underlying drug-induced weight gain in psychiatric patients.

Drug-induced weight gain in psychiatric patients is common and often leads to obesity, with some drugs causing weight gain and others reducing weight.

Psychiatric Disorders and Childhood Parental Loss in Obesity: Relationship with the Mode of Weight Gain

Bipolar II disorder and childhood parental loss may influence sudden weight gain mode in obese patients, potentially impacting their weight trajectories and requiring preventive interventions.

Physiological Mechanisms of Weight Gain-Induced Steatosis in People With Obesity.

Weight gain-induced steatosis in obese individuals occurs due to an imbalance in hepatic fatty acid availability and disposal, leading to increased hepatic de novo lipogenesis, decreased intrahepatic fatty acid oxidation, and inadequate increases in triglyceride export.

Dieting: proxy or cause of future weight gain?

Dieting does not cause future weight gain, but is a proxy risk factor for identifying individuals prone to weight gain due to other factors.

Smoking cessation and weight gain

Smoking cessation improves insulin sensitivity, but may lead to weight gain, with nicotine gum and nicotine patches potentially reducing this risk.

Weight gain associated with neuroleptic medication: a review.

Neuroleptic drug use is associated with weight gain, with Clozapine and low-potency phenothiazines causing the largest gains, while molindone may cause weight loss.

Consumption of a fat-rich diet activates a proinflammatory response and induces insulin resistance in the hypothalamus.

High-fat feeding activates a proinflammatory response in the hypothalamus, leading to impaired anorexigenic insulin signaling and weight gain.

Asymmetric weight gain and loss from increasing and decreasing exercise.

Asymmetric weight changes below 30 kcal.kg(-1) in men and 15 kcal.kg(-1) in women may contribute to weight gain among less-active individuals.

A single night of sleep deprivation increases ghrelin levels and feelings of hunger in normal‐weight healthy men

A single night of sleep deprivation increases feelings of hunger and ghrelin levels in healthy men, potentially leading to weight gain and obesity.

The Relationship between Psychological Factors and Weight Gain

Stress awareness is significantly associated with weight gain among women, while other psychological factors, such as depression, are not significantly associated with weight gain.

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