Compulsive Eating Behavior Research Articles

Sleep evaluation in the symptomatic episode of recurrent hypersomnia

Abstract Recurrent hypersomnia (RH) is a rare disorder characterized by episodes of hypersomnia, variously accompanied by behavioural and cognitive disturbances, compulsive eating behaviour and hypersexuality. Electrophysiologic evaluation of the sleep during symptomatic and asymptomatic periods of RH distinguishes RH from other primary sleep or mental disorders. Unique polysomnographic findings during the hypersomniac attack lasting 96 hours in a 16-year-old boy affected with primary RH are presented in this paper.

Dysphagia in Patients With Frontotemporal Lobar Dementia

Hyperorality, compulsive eating and aspiration because of food gorging, has been described in patients with frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTLD), but swallowing function in this population has not been reported. To identify the swallowing status in a sample of patients with FTLD. Case series. Referral center, ambulatory care. A consecutive series of referred patients with 3 variants of FTLD were asked to participate. Twenty-one patients were enrolled, including 9 with frontotemporal dementia, 7 with progressive nonfluent aphasia, and 5 with semantic dementia. The patients underwent a fiberoptic endoscopic examination of swallowing to assess their ability to swallow liquids and food. Presence of dysphagia and nature of impaired swallowing. Of the 21 patients, 4 caretakers reported swallowing difficulties. An instrumental examination revealed moderate swallowing abnormalities in 12 of the 21 patients. These abnormalities were not explained by compulsive eating behaviors, but seemed to reflect deficits in cortical and subcortical pathways connecting with the brainstem swallowing center. When assessed via instrumentation, swallowing abnormalities are found in many patients with FTLD. The appearance of dysphagia signals progression of FTLD to brainstem systems.

The Anxiogenic Drug Yohimbine Reinstates Palatable Food Seeking in a Rat Relapse Model: a Role of CRF1 Receptors

The major problem in treating excessive eating is high rates of relapse to maladaptive eating habits during diet treatments; this relapse is often induced by stress or anxiety states. Preclinical studies have not explored this clinical problem. Here, we adapted a reinstatement model (commonly used to study relapse to abused drugs) to examine the role of stress and anxiety in relapse to palatable food seeking during dieting. Rats were placed on restricted diet (75-80% of daily standard food) and for 12 intermittent training days (9 h/day, every other day) lever-pressed for palatable food pellets (25% fat, 48% carbohydrate) under a fixed ratio 1 (20-s timeout) reinforcement schedule. Subsequently, the rats were given 10 daily extinction sessions during which lever presses were not reinforced, and were then injected with yohimbine (an alpha-2 adrenoceptor antagonist that induces stress and anxiety in humans and non-humans) or given a single food pellet to assess reinstatement of food seeking. The rats rapidly learned to lever press for the palatable pellets and across the training days the ratio of timeout nonreinforced lever presses to reinforced lever presses progressively increased more than three-fold, suggesting the development of compulsive eating behavior. After extinction, yohimbine injections and pellet priming reliably reinstated food seeking. The corticotropin-releasing factor1 (CRF1) receptor antagonist antalarmin attenuated the reinstatement induced by yohimbine, but not pellet priming. Antalarmin also reversed yohimbine's anxiogenic effects in the social interaction test. These data suggest that CRF is involved in stress-induced relapse to palatable food seeking, and that CRF1 antagonists should be considered for the treatment of maladaptive eating habits.

Do Eating Disorders and Obsessive Disorders Share Family Genes

The morbid preoccupation with eating, weight, and body image that occurs with eating disorders is associated with compulsive eating behavior. In

Family cohesion, family adaptability, and eating behaviors among college students

Do normative young people, who tend to eat compulsively or to diet restrictively, perceive their families as relatively enmeshed and rigid, i.e., resembling the “psychosomatic family” profile associated with clinical populations of bulimics and anorexics? To answer this question, 300 college students were surveyed with self-report inventories assessing eating behaviors and perceived family cohesion and adaptability. Perceptions of family behavior were NOT significantly related to dieting. Among females, compulsive eating was associated with families perceived to be relatively uncohesive. Among males, family variables accounted for a surprisingly large proportion (18%) of the variance in compulsive eating behaviors. Males who tended to eat compulsively perceived their families as relatively uncohesive and rigid, were relatively dissatisfied with their families, and had relatively cold relationships with each parent. In sum, data suggested that subjects who binged or dieted restrictively did NOT appear to share the family pattern associated with clinical eating disorders. Compulsive eating among females may have represented simply a response to environmental stress, while among males it may have reflected pervasive inadequacies perceived in intrafamily relationships.