My son's losing weight due to lack of appetite. His weight history is as follows:

1. Normal adult weight has been about 146 to 148 pounds. He's about 5'9" I think, so he's lean. He's 27, and up to a couple of years ago he pretty much maintained that weight with no effort.

2. In late 2010 he dropped to 116 during a severe psychotic episode. This happened over a period of a few months when he was living away from the family, so we didn't see him - just talked on the phone. He looked skeletal. We never really got a hold on why he lost so much weight. He gave a variety of reasons to various people - couldn't afford food, felt sick to stomach, fear of being poisoned, eating was "disgusting."

I took him to a doctor who found no physical reason for the weight loss.

3. Feb./Mar. 2011 he was hospitalized and put on a high dose of Zyprexa for his psychosis. He began gaining, eventually reaching 165 pounds.

4. His pdoc felt he was overmedicated and began lowering the dose. His weight dropped with the lowering of the dose.

5. He's been slipping under 140 over the last six months or so. He managed to force himself to eat enough to go a bit over 140, but after he started working fulltime two weeks ago he slipped to 137. He's trying to force himself to eat but has no appetite.

He'd like his weight to be a little higher, and I agree. Does anyone know of any natural ways to increase appetite?