Reducing Symptoms in Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder Through Drug Treatment

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Reducing Symptoms in Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder Through Drug Treatment

Bulimia nervosa is a chronic psychiatric disorder that haunts the lives of many young women. The disorder is characterized by frequent episodes of binge eating followed by some sort of purging. The purging usually involves self-induced vomiting and can cause great damage to the body. Persons diagnosed with bulimia nervosa have a loss of control over these behaviors. Affecting the lives of 3-5% of young women, bulimia is a problem that is spinning out of control and nothing seems to be able to stop it. Binge eating disorder is another psychiatric disease that causes problems for many people. In this disorder, persons binge frequently but do not attempt to compensate for their eating by using purging techniques such as those used by persons suffering from bulimia nervosa.

There are many types of treatments that attempt to mitigate the symptoms of bulimia and binge eating disorder. But what causes the binges in binge eating disorder and what causes the binge-purge cycle in bulimics? How can the symptoms of these disorders be reduced or eliminated? If the causes of these behaviors are discovered, the behaviors can be reduced. There are several therapies that have proven to be fairly effective in treating persons diagnosed with bulimia nervosa. Drug therapy has made great advances in recent years and goes straight to the root of the problem. Drug therapy attempts to uncover the biological causes of the symptoms of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

A discovery made recently found that there is an inverse correlation among women with bulimia between the frequency of binge-eating and cerebrospinal fluid concentration of the major ser...

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...very effective. This manual should be researched and developed further because not only can people educate themselves, but therapists can have more time to focus on deeper problems and on patients who do not respond well to such therapies.

Works Cited

Hartman, Boyd K., Faris, Patricia L. Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa With Odansetron. Archives of General Psychiatry. 1997; 54: 969-970.

Hudson, James I., McElroy, Susan L. Fluvoxamine in the Treatment of Binge-Eating Disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 1998; 155: 1756-1762.

Rissanen, Aila., Naukkarinen, Hannu. Fluoxetine Normalizes Increased Cardiac Vagal Tone in Bulimia Nervosa. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. 1998; 18: 26-32.

Treasure, Janet., Schmidt, Ulrike. Sequential Treatment for Bulimia Nervosa Incorporating a Self-Care Manual. The British Journal of Psychiatry. 1996; 168: 94-98.

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