Binge-Eating Disorder And Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Binge-Eating Disorder And Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
A downer reach-me-down to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may also help treat binge-eating disorder, introductory research suggests. At higher doses tested, the prescription drug Vyvanse curtailed the overdone food consumption that characterizes binge-eating disorder. Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine dimesylate) is solely approved in the United States to study ADHD, and no drug has been approved to curb binge-eating disorder. Binge-eating - only recently recognized by the psychiatric community as a plain disorder - is characterized by reoccurring episodes of excessive food consumption accompanied by a sense of loss of control and unconscious distress, the study authors noted.

It is also associated with obesity. "Right now the most commonly used medications are epilepsy drugs," said look co-author Dr James Mitchell, president of the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute in Fargo, ND. "And they do employee patients to eat well and cut down on weight. However, their aspect effect profiles are not great, with their impact on cognitive mental impairment in itemized making them difficult for many patients to tolerate".

What Mitchell found most impressive in the new study on Vyvanse was the drug's effectiveness and that it was "very well tolerated". The 14-week study, reported in the Jan 14, 2015 online copy of JAMA Psychiatry, was funded by Shire Development, LLC, the fabricator of Vyvanse. The researchers tracked outcomes middle roughly 260 patients with moderate to strict binge-eating disorder between 2011 and 2012. All of the participants were between 18 and 55 years old, and none had a diagnosis of any additional psychiatric disorders, such as ADHD, anorexia or bulimia.

The volunteers were divided into four groups for 11 weeks. The original faction received 30 milligrams (mg) of Vyvanse daily, while the aid and third groups started with 30 mg a day, increasing to 50 mg or 70 mg (respectively) within three weeks. A fourth gathering took an listless placebo pill. Vyvanse did not appear to help curtail binge eating at the lowest dosage. But population taking the higher doses experienced a bigger drop in the number of days they binged each week compared with the placebo group, the researchers found.