There have been many arguments over the weight of Ross Sullivan on this site and others. Ross Sullivan as we know suffered with Schizophrenia, which means he would have probably been treated with first generation antipsychotics, at least during his admissions into hospital. It is known that this class of medication causes weight gain – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5574691/ .
On discharge I doubt he was compliant with his medication as Common side effects include sedation, ridgedity, akasthesia (inability to keep still) and propensity for tardive diskonesia (unwanted movements of the extremities and face such as grimacing and eye blinking) – sometimes irreversible. And these are only the physical side effects.
With that said Ross’s weight would have been somewhat unpredictable.
Another observation seen in Schizophrenic patients is those with a high IQ tend to have fewer disorganised and negative symptoms..
I like Ross. But lets face it the weight is problematic. Weight fluctuation is totally plausible, but it adds another assumption.
I suppose the question is, just how plausible, or likely is the assumption?
It’s true some typical antipsychotics list weight gain as a side effect. But listed side effects can be spurious, and not all side effects listed are… well it’s not a matter of how common the side effect is, it’s entirely possible for a side effect to wind up on a bottle even if it’s totally not real. The bars low, if it was reported they list it. But a lot of the time it’s correlation, or just a placebo effect.
One of the best theories that explains weight gain across almost all psychiatric medication, is that people are simply eating more because they’re less ill. It’s not hard to understand that things like depression, catatonia, psychosis, or just about any mental disturbance is going to negatively effect self care, regardless of any effect on appetite.
There is at least one atypical antipsychotic, olanzapine, which I believe effects blood sugar and therefore has a plausible mechanism to directly effect weight gain.
In my experience weight fluctuation is very common, and I would suggest that if someone is known to be at an extreme weight, the likelihood of the them yo-yoing is greatly increased.
I still think it must be counted as stroke against Ross in terms of probability. But I’m not sure if physical appearance will solve this case. It can help direct the focus of the search, but I don’t think it can prove anything one way or the other.
