Does Pregabalin cause weight gain?

Does Pregabalin cause weight gain?

 

If you are asking “does pregabalin cause weight gain?”. The answer is yes.

There are a lot of drugs that induce weight gain, weight gain is a very serious and annoying side effect. One of these drugs is pregabalin.

 

Weight gain can lead to stopping the therapy and exacerbating a lot of medical conditions, weight gain is a problem that can lead to glycemic control and increasing blood pressure or worsening lipid profile.

 

Patients can control weight gain by adhering to a suitable diet and exercise or even they can take drugs to control this problem.

 

This problem is common with most antipsychotics drugs like clozapine risperidone olanzapine and quetiapine, and also some antidepressant such as mirtazapine and amitriptyline, and this problem are not related to the disease severity but related to the drug itself.

 

The same phenomenon is related to some Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and mood stablilizers like carbamazepine, valproate, and gabapentin.

 

A meta-analysis (a study that analyses the results of independent studies of the same topic to determine overall trends) included 106 studies and 43,525 patients, that published in 2012 by the Current Medical Research and Opinion concluded that 70% of pregabalin users by a dose of  150 to 600 mg once daily maintained 7% of baseline weight.

1 in 6 patients gained more than 7% from baseline  One in six patients gained ≥7% weight from baseline.

In pregabalin controlled clinical trials in adult patients which lasted for 14 weeks, a gain of 7% or more over baseline weight was observed in 9% of pregabalin-treated patients. Few patients treated with pregabalin (0.3%) could not complete the controlled trials due to weight gain.

 

pregabalin associated weight gain was related to dose and duration of exposure, increasing the dose increases the chances of weight gain as doses of 600 mg were associated with a higher percentage of weight gain but the percentage did not appear to be associated with baseline BMI, gender, or age.

 

Although weight gain related to pregabalin was not associated with clinically important changes in blood pressure in short-term use, the long-term cardiovascular effects of pregabalin-associated weight gain are not clear.

Pregabaline and diabetes:

If you are a diabetic patient you should ask about does pregabalin cause weight gain?

Among diabetic patients, pregabalin-treated patients gained an average of 1.6 kg (range: -16 to 16 kg), In a study of 333 diabetic patients who received pregabalin for at least 2 years, the average weight gain was 5.2 kg.

While the effects of pregabalin-associated weight gain on glycemic control have not been systematically assessed, in controlled and longer-term clinical trials with diabetic patients, pregabalin treatment did not appear to be associated with loss of glycemic control.

 

Pregabaline and heart failure:

 

Pregabaline can cause peripheral oedema (swelling of limbs), so caution must be paid to the patient with heart failure and with patients using other drugs that cause peripheral oedema like thiazolidinedione antidiabetic drug (rosiglitazone, pioglitazone).

 

The incidence of peripheral oedema associated with pregabalin was 6% and only 0.5% stopped the medication and withdraw from controlled clinical trials.

 

There are a lot of studies that tried to relate between pregabalin and heart failure as pregabalin can cause fluid retention and weight gain which may be an overload to the heart, but none of them was able to confirm that pregabalin can cause heart failure or exacerbation to chronic heart failure.

 

This may answer the patient who always asking ‘Does pregabalin cause heart failure?’ ‘Does pregabalin cause weight gain?’.

 

There are a lot other common adverse events related to pregabalin such as:

Common adverse events:

• Sore throat.
• Increased appetite.
• Decrease in sexual interest, feeling of elation, confusion, disorientation, irritability.
• Disturbance in attention, clumsiness, memory impairment, loss of memory, tremor, difficulty with speaking, tingling feeling, numbness, sedation, lethargy, insomnia, fatigue, feeling abnormal.
• Blurred vision, double vision.
• Vertigo, problems with balance, fall.
• Dry mouth, vomiting, flatulence, constipation, nausea, swollen abdomen, diarrhoea.
• Difficulties with erection.
• Abnormal style of walking, Feeling drunk.
• Joint pain, pain in limb, muscle cramp, back pain.

 

Rare adverse event:

• Swinging vision, vision loss, abnormal sense of smell, visual brightness, altered perception of depth.
• Dilated pupils, cross eyes.
• Cold sweat, tightness of the throat, swollen tongue.
• Inflammation of the pancreas.
• Difficulty in swallowing.
• Slow or reduced movement of the body.
• Difficulty with writing properly.
• Increased fluid in the abdomen.
• Fluid in the lungs.
• Changes in heart rhythm.
• Muscle damage.
• Abnormal breast growth, breast discharge, breast growth in males.
• Interrupted menstrual periods.
• Kidney failure, reduced urine volume, urinary retention.
• Decrease in white blood cell count.
• Inappropriate behaviour.
• Jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes).

 Serious adverse events:

• life-threatening allergic reactions.
• Suicidal thoughts.
• Swelling of peripheral limbs.
• Serious problems with breathing.

 

We hope that we explain if “Does Pregabalin cause weight gain?” was useful to you. Rememberer always to ask your doctor or pharmacist before any medical decision.

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