OVERWEIGHT/OBESITY MAY POINT TO BINGE EATING DISORDER
The Eating Disorders Program at NYS Psychiatric Institute is Seeking Volunteers for a Research Study

New York, NY (July 26, 2004) –Nowadays, being overweight or obese gets you a lot of attention and not just because of the stigma it carries. The federal government and the medical community are talking about the health consequences. There are measures afoot to change insurance coverage for treatment and celebrities, as well as average people, are going under the knife.

But, while labels like overweight and obese are pervasive, binge eating disorder (BED) is still a mystery to most people. People with BED have a number of characteristics that distinguish them from people who are just obese:

• Eating unusually large amounts of food in a short time (< 2 hours)
  
• Eating large amounts of food even when not physically hungry
  
• A compulsion to eat and being unable to stop
  
• Having a meal alone due to embarrassment about how much one is eating
  
• Feeling uncomfortably full after finishing eating
  
• Often feeling depressed or guilty after a binge episode.

In addition, “People who are binge eaters tend to suffer more from depression and
anxiety,” said Dr. Timothy Walsh, Director of the Eating Disorders Program at the NYS Psychiatric Institute (PI). “The goal of research here at PI is to understand the causes of disorders like BED, why they’re hard to recover from and treatments that work.”

He and Dr. Michael Devlin, a binge eating expert and Co-Director of the Program, are leading an investigation of a drug called Topiramate for treating BED. Recent clinical trials have found the drug to be effective in reducing binge eating, suppressing appetite, increasing satiety, decreasing preoccupation with food and improving weight loss.

“BED sufferers who enroll in research studies at PI have usually tried several ways to lose weight,” said Dr. Devlin. “With this study we hope to see a decrease in the number of binging episodes, improvements in mood and a change in body mass index.”

For more information about the study, interested participants should call (212) 543-6811.

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