Abstract
Over the last few years psychiatrists have been increasingly concerned about obesity, dyslipidemia and raised glucose levels in patients taking antipsychotics. The problem of metabolic syndrome is significantly more frequent (up to 2‒3 times) in this group of patients. In this paper, we have presented a summary of the mechanisms responsible for increased appetite and weight gain induced by antipsychotics. These two phenomena underlie further metabolic abnormalities. Due to high prevalence of metabolic disorders and their effect on increased cardiovascular risk, the systemic evaluation of basic risk factors (abdominal obesity, cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose, blood pressure) is necessary in all patients taking antipsychotics (the same applies to antidepressants and mood stabilizers).