Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva Podcast on your host Monica Reinegel.

An analysis recently published in the journal Obesity found that one in five American

adults takes a prescription medicine that has the potential to cause weight gain as a

side effect, technically these are referred to as Obesogenic Medications.

These include medications prescribed for seizure disorders, inflammatory conditions,

antidepressants and anti-psychotics and they also include drugs that are commonly used

to manage high blood pressure and type two diabetes and of course these are conditions where

overweight and obesity can be a complicating factor.

Here to talk with me about the implications of all of this is Ted Kyle.

Ted is a pharmacist who has dedicated his career to addressing and educating about health

issues created by obesity.

He's very involved in advocacy, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Obesity Action

Coalition and previously he was director of policy and innovation for GlaxoSmithCline.

Welcome Ted and thanks so much for joining me on the Nutrition Diva Podcast.

I'm so glad to have a connection to someone who can help us better understand this issue.

Thanks so much for having me Monica.

I'm delighted to be here.

So the first question that popped into my head when I was reading this study is when a

medication has this side effect that it can cause weight gain, what is the mechanism for that?

Is it through an increase in your appetite caused by the medication or maybe does the medication

suppress your metabolism or are there other mechanisms?

I imagine this is probably different for different drugs but what's going on here?

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