Obesity and Clozapine Use in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder, and treatment is based on the use of
antipsychotics, such as clozapine. These drugs have been associated with obesity and metabolic
changes.
Objective: A systematic review to assess the association of obesity with the use of clozapine in
schizophrenic patients.
Method: It was made a search for articles in PUBMED and Capes of the regular databases with
the keywords “Schizophrenia” “obesity” “clozapine” “weight gain”. The search included articles in English that were published between 2004 and 2015. We included only articles with retrospective studies and the following inclusion criteria: both sexes, patients older than 20 years,
use of time of clozapine minimum of three months and sample size less than 50 individuals.
Results: They were selected 4 articles contemplated the inclusion criteria. In all items selected
for this study, obesity was associated with clozapine.
Conclusions: There is a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity in patients with schizophrenia compared with the general population, this is due to some factors such as the use of
atypical antipsychotics, such as clozapine.