How Does Wellbutrin Make You Lose Weight?

What Is Wellbutrin?

Wellbutrin is a prescription medicine used to treat depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is when depression occurs during the fall and winter months. Its scientific name is bupropion . Another brand of bupropion, Zyban, has been used to help patients quit smoking by curbing cravings and symptoms of withdrawal. There are a number of possible side effects of Wellbutrin, and weight loss is one of them. Wellbutrin has been known to cause loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, so weight-loss tends go to hand in hand with those symptoms, but those side effects usually last a few months, then stop. In studies, up to 28 percent of people taking Wellbutrin lost more than five pounds.

Contrave

Contrave, a new weight-loss drug currently in clinical trials, is a combination of Wellbutrin and the addiction drug Naltrexone. According to Dr. Dennis Kim, senior vice president of medical affairs and communications at Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., the makers of Contrave, in an article for ABC News, people taking the drug lost an average of 8 percent of their body weight, around 17 pounds, within one year. As of June 2009, the drug was not yet approved by the F.D.A. Said Kim, "We have clearly cleared the hurdle, the efficacy benchmark, it's of course the FDA's judgment to see if it passes for safety."

Side Effects

Other side effects of Wellbutrin can be drowsiness, excitement, dry mouth, dizziness, headache, uncontrollable shaking of a part of the body, constipation, excessive sweating, seizures, confusion, hallucinating, fever, rash and or chest, muscle or joint pain.

Wellbutrin has also been the subject of a study by the FDA that found suicidal thoughts or actions in children and adults may increase when taking Wellbutrin or Zyban.

A doctor should always be notified if you want to know more about Wellbutrin or any weight-loss drugs or strategies.