Impact of caffeine on weight changes due to ketotifen administration.

Purpose: Prescription of ketotifen as an effective antihistamine in asthma and allergic conditions is associated with side effect of weight gain. Caffeine is an agent which increases thermogenesis and improves energy expenditure and also effective in asthma. The aim of current study was to evaluate caffeine impact in reducing weight gain side effect of ketotifen.

Methods: Male mice at the weight limit of 20-30 gr in 8 groups were randomly chosen and injected following drug dosages for 45 days intraperitoneally: control group (normal saline 10 ml/kg), three groups of ketotifen (4, 8, 16 mg/kg), three groups of caffeine (4, 8, 16 mg/kg) and one group of ketotifen (4 mg/kg) in combination with caffeine (4 mg/kg). Weight changes have been recorded and assessed every 3 days for 45 days.

Results: The results showed that in all dosages of the two drugs, significant weight loss occurred in comparison with the control group.

Conclusion: The effect of caffeine on weight loss according to our results, matches with human studies, while ketotifen contradictory to our assumption, resulted in weight loss which probably was related to the difference in metabolic pathways in mice and humans, or maybe the used doses of ketotifen in this study were insufficient to reduce TNF-α production or influence in serotonin release and be effective on appetite or weight gain.