Body Weight Changes after Deep Brain Stimulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or Depression

In 2010, we published an often-cited case report describing smoking cessation and substantial weight loss after deep brain stimulation (DBS) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in an obese patient. To test whether this single observation was also observed in the treated population at large, the weight changes of a larger cohort of patients who underwent DBS for OCD or major depressive disorder (MDD) were studied.

Data were available for 46 patients (30 OCD and 16 MDD patients; mean age 46.2 years, SD 10.9) with an average baseline body mass index (BMI) of 28.0 (SD 7.3), 26 of whom (57%) were overweight (n = 11), obese (n = 12), or morbidly obese (n = 3). Mean follow-up was 3.8 years (range 10 months to 8.7 years, SD 2.3), after which the average BMI was 28.1 (SD 7.0), not significantly different from baseline. The average BMI of the 15 patients with (morbid) obesity at baseline decreased from 36.8 to 34.6 (ns), while the average BMI of the 31 normal or "only" overweight patients at baseline increased from 23.8 to 25.0 (ns).

There was no significant change in body weight on group level after DBS for either OCD or MDD.