Environmental Agents

Intrauterine Factors

Several intrauterine events influence postnatal weight and lifetime weight gain and fatness [10]. These include, among other things, maternal weight gain, maternal diabetes, maternal smoking, and intrauterine undernutrition, all of which heighten the individual’s risk for increased body weight and diabetes later in life.

Drug-Induced Weight Gain

In our current medicated society, it would not be surprising to find that drugs can cause weight gain. Table 8.1 is a list of medications that produce weight gain when used to treat various diseases such as psychosis, depression, allergies, and diabetes. Also listed in the table are alternative treatments that can be used to avoid the weight gain. In most instances, there are alternative strategies that can be used to treat a patient when weight gain is closely associated with the initiation of a new medication for one of these conditions. Several receptors, especially the histamine H_b adrenergic a_JA, and serotonin (5-HT)-2C and -6 (5-HT_2C and 5-HT₆) receptors, explain much of the weight gain associated with atypical antipsychotic drugs (see [2]).

Table 8.1 Drugs that produce weight gain and alternatives