Normand Study Examines Risk of Weight Gain with Use of Antipsychotic Drugs

Connected neurons

Professor of health care policy, Sharon-Lise Normand, PhD, and colleagues have published a studyRisk of weight gain for specific antipsychotic drugs: a meta-analysis, as part of The Open Translational Science in Schizophrenia (OPTICS) project: an open-science project bringing together Janssen clinical trial and NIMH data, in Nature Schizophrenia.

This study was a Harvard Catalyst funded effort targeted at Open Science. It examines the risk of weight gain for specific antipsychotic drugs for patients with schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia are at higher risk for obesity and cardiometabolic disorders including dyslipidemia, hypertension, type two diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) as a result of a number of factors, some inherent to the illness and associated lifestyle, and some related to the care they receive or fail to receive. The study assesses the effect of specific second-generation antipsychotics on weight gain, defined as at least a 7% increase in weight from randomization, using a Bayesian hierarchical model network meta-analysis with individual patient level data.

The full study can be read at the Nature Schizophrenia website.