Binge Eating Tops Other Eating Disorders: Survey

THURSDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Binge eating tops the list of eating disorders affecting Americans, with the first-ever national survey on eating disorders finding it much more prevalent than either anorexia or bulimia.

Binge eating -- a condition where people undergo frequent, uncontrolled eating binges without purging -- affects 3.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men during their lifetime. The condition is strongly linked to obesity.

There have been previous studies that looked at the prevalence of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa in the population, "but for binge eating, there had been no previous studies," said lead researcher Dr. James I. Hudson, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at McLean Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

"These are really the first hard numbers for the prevalence of this disorder," he said during a teleconference to announce the findings on Wednesday.

According to the new survey, binge eating is more common than either anorexia nervosa, which strikes 0.9 percent of women and 0.3 percent of men, or bulimia nervosa, which affects 1.5 percent of women and 0.5 percent of men.

Binge eating "is associated with severe obesity and all the complications of obesity," Hudson said. "And, it's often chronic."

That said, the rates ofalleating disorders have been increasing, according to Hudson. "In addition, eating disorders are related to mood disorders, anxiety disorders, impulse control disorders and substance use disorders," he noted.

More troubling is the fact that less than half of those with a history of an eating disorder said they had ever received treatment, Hudson said.

In the survey, Hudson's team collected data on almost 9,300 people from across the United States who participated in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Among those interviewed, 3,000 answered questions about eating disorders. The report is published in the February issue ofBiological Psychiatry.

The researchers found that the average duration of anorexia was 1.7 years, compared with 8.3 years for bulimia and 8.1 years for binge eating disorder.

"Binge eating is a true eating disorder. It is a major public health problem," Hudson said. "There is a strong genetic component to binge eating disorder and, because of this, we might be able to treat or prevent binge eating and thereby prevent many cases of obesity."

One expert believes the survey will bring more attention to eating disorders, prompting the U.S. government to spend more dollars in research on the causes and treatment of these conditions.