Many medications that are used in neurology cause either weight loss or weight gain. This points to neurological control of patient's body weight.

Medications that neurologist commonly utilize that are associated with weight gain include the tricyclic antidepressants of Elavil and Pamelor, seizure medications depakote, neurontin, and lyrica, and some SSRI antidepressants such as Paxil.

Medications that cause weight loss include the seizure medications topamax and zonegran. The antidepressant wellbutrin appears to be associated with weight loss as well.

While Dr. Loftus pays attention to patient weight while choosing therapies for epilepsy, he does not treat weight loss alone. This means if you are interested in taking topamax or zonegran only to lose weight, then please discuss this with your internist. Dr. Loftus will not be prescribing these medications strictly for weight loss although he does not think that this is unreasonable for other physicians to do. Generally, the weight loss that can be expected for obese patients with zonegran and topamax is about 10% of body weight. This compares favorably to things like a medifast diet or weight loss medications such as Xenical or Meridia.