Sleep-Related Eating Disorders: A Separate Entity or Part of the NES Clinical Spectrum?

Abstract

This chapter examines the complex relationship between night eating, eating disorders (EDs) and sleep disturbances. Nocturnal ingestion is a symptom shared by parasomnia known as sleep-related eating disorder (SRED), EDs and night eating syndrome (NES). The first part of the chapter focuses on NES. It outlines the history of this syndrome and describes the newly proposed diagnostic criteria (Allison et al., Int J Eat Disord. 43(3):241–7, 2010). After that it discusses the relationship between NES and other EDs. The second part of the chapter reviews the historical background of SRED and shows how this syndrome is related to amnesia, restless legs syndrome, and sleepwalking. The last part of the chapter considers the relationship between SRED and NES. It discusses the controversial issues surrounding the question of whether SRED lies along the continuous clinical spectrum for NES or is a separate sleep disorder, in view of the new definition of the syndrome to be published in 2013 in the third version of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders.