Underweight Treatment: The Best Medications and Tips

Underweight Treatment: The Best Medications and Tips

Treating thinness can be difficult, especially with the loss of your appetite. However, there are drugs that can help increase your appetite and help you gain weight.

But before you know the most prominent names of weight gaining drugs, thinness has causes and risks to know first, because they may increase your risk of disease and osteoporosis, and children's development may be delayed because of it, so how can it be treated naturally and medically?

Underweight causes

The cause of excess thinness varies from human to human, but there are some factors that may increase your risk of being thin or underweight, such as:

• Family history: You may be at risk of thinness as a result of your family's common physical characteristics, with thinness being the dominant feature of their bodies.
• Increase metabolic rate: The higher the metabolic rate, the more calorie burning, the harder the weight gain process, and then some people may become underweight as a result of an increase in their body's metabolic rate.
• Frequent physical activity: Yes, it may be desirable to lose excess weight, but excess or engage in extreme exercise, can burn huge amounts of calories, leading to thinness.
• Diseases: Some diseases may cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea regularly, making weight gain difficult, and some diseases may reduce human appetite. Prominent examples include cancer, thyroid disorders, inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis.
• Psychiatric disorder: Your ability to eat may be affected with certain psychiatric disorders, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or eating disorders, such as bulimia.

Underweight risks

Thinness should be treated as soon as possible, as underweight may threaten you with many health risks, such as:

1. Malnutrition

If you are underweight, this may be due to inadequate intake of healthy food, which provides essential nutrients for your energy supply, which may lead to malnutrition, which may cause the following symptoms:

• Feeling tired or depleting your body's energy.
• High incidence of disease.
• Irregular or missed periods in women.
• Thinning or falling hair, or dry skin.

2. Immune weakness

Studies have found a strong link between increased chances of infection and being underweight, and researchers may not have been able to determine whether it was due to underweight or other reasons behind it.

However, malnutrition (which causes thinness) may result in weakened immunity, and hence an increased risk of infection, bacterial, viral or other, as well as disease, such as the common cold, whose symptoms may be prolonged than usual.

3. Osteoporosis

Thinness may increase the risk of osteoporosis, a study found that women who have reached menopausal age and are underweight, were more susceptible to osteoporosis, making them more susceptible to fracture.

4. Infertility

Amenorrhea can increase in women when their weight is less than normal, and the menstrual cycle may not be regular, as well, indicating irregular ovulation or anovulation, and the chronic anovulation may lead to infertility.

5. Anaemia

Slimmers may be more susceptible to anemia, as the decrease in the number of red blood cells, may make you suffering from certain symptoms, such as:

• headache.
• dizziness.
• exhaustion.

6. Delayed development in children

Children are in need to have the necessary nutrients through food to sustain their development. Underweight and insufficient calories can delay growth and not reach the child's projected growth at different age stages.

Treatment of thinness

There are many ways to treat extreme thinness, such as:

1. Increase snacks

Snacks can be taken between main meals, including high-protein foods, such as eggs, salmon or chicken, as well as whole grains as a source of carbohydrates, such as oats and quinoa.

Healthy fats can also be taken to help gain weight and treat thinness, such as nuts and avocado.

2. Eating foods rich in nutrients

Instead of eating fast food and empty calories, it is better to eat foods rich in real nutrients, such as:

• Protein-rich meat, which helps build muscle.
• Nutritious carbohydrates, brown rice and whole grains.

This ensures the body gets as much nutrition as possible, even if your appetite is low.

3. Eat multiple small meals throughout the day

Sometimes thinness may be due to inability to eat large meals, so they can eat small meals throughout the day as long as they are not able to eat large meals, which is generally better.

4. Exercise

Yes, excessive exercise may lead to thinness and underweight, but certain types of exercise may help increase weight, such as weight lifting, especially with increased protein intake. This helps build muscles and increase their mass, thus increasing weight.

Drugs to treat thinness quickly

Medications for slimming and weight gaining treatment can be taken under doctor’s supervision, especially if adherence to previous treatment methods is difficult. The most important of which are:

1. Megace

Megace is a hormone therapy that helps to gain weight by mimicking sexual hormones, such as progestogen, which is thought to increase weight through increased appetite.

Studies have shown its effectiveness in weight gain in those who have lost weight as a result of anorexia, breast cancer, HIV, or uterine cancer.

It may take a few weeks for drug results to appear, as may some side effects, such as poor libido, insomnia and vaginal bleeding.

2. Oxandrolone

A hormonal drug, commonly used to increase muscle mass, mimicking testosterone that promotes muscle growth. Research has shown that it can increase appetite in some people, but may cause some side effects, such as:

• Poor libido.
• Difficulty urinating.
• Insomnia.

3. Mosegor

Mosegor (Pizotifen) helps with weight gain, but it is used to treat and prevent migraines, it is an antihistamine and antiserotonin, and weight gain may be one of its side effects, as it may increase appetite, which is not a hormonal drug like previous drugs.

When are you weighing less than normal?

This is defined by the body mass index (BMI), which can be calculated by dividing weight (kg) by a square of length (m).

For example, if you weigh 70 kilograms, and are 1.7 meters tall, the BMI = 70/( 1.7) 2 = 24.2.

According to the BMI number, the evidence for weight is whether it is excess, deficient or natural, as the following table explains: