This study demonstrates that patients using antidepressants (Ads) continuously, mostly serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), show significantly more (abdominal) overweight and obesity than those using them intermittently or not at all. Compared with SSRIs, other types of ADs used (e.g. tricyclic ADs) did not have a significant impact on the anthropometric measures.

In a study published in the last 2010 issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, a group of researchers of the University of Amsterdam presents new findings on the relationship between weight and recurrent depression.

The literature on the relation between obesity and the recurrent type of major depressive disorder (MDD-R; having had at least 2 major depressive episodes) is limited and equivocal. Most studies on depression and obesity did not distinguish between single and recurrent episodes. However, this distinction may be important because depression is increasingly considered a chronic recurrent disorder with various levels of interepisodic functioning, and evidence is growing that the recurrent type is a distinct one.

Most studies on the relation between depression and obesity did not control for antidepressant (AD) medication use, although a substantial part (20 - 60%) of the recurrently depressed patients use ADs for lengthy periods of time. This study elaborates on their findings by focussing on the relation between obesity and MDD-R and the association between long-term use of ADs and obesity. To be eligible for this study, ppatients had to meet the following criteria: (a) at least 2 major depressive episodes in the past 5 years (DSM IV), (b) current remission status, according to DSM-IV criteria, for longer than 10 weeks and no longer than 2 years before, and (c) Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression of