Eating the Whole Plate of Cookies: The Genetic Heritage of Binge Eating
“Like the alcoholic who loses control after the first drink, these people can’t stop at just one cookie,” according to Harvard researcher Dr. James Hudson, lead author of a new study on binge eating disorder as a familial disorder. The study of 300 overweight people and 900 of their family members revealed that a person is twice as likely to binge eat if he or she has a relative who also has the disorder.
According to a new study entitled Binge-Eating Disorder as a Distinct Familial Phenotype in Obese Individuals, having a binge-eating relative doubles the chances that a person will binge eat and more than doubles a person’s chances of becoming severely obese.
Binge eating is more common than anorexia nervosa or bulimia; according to another study published in the same issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, anorexia is more than half-determined by genetics, with environment accounting for the rest. And a third study found that girls who suffer from depression or anxiety are more likely to be overweight as adults.
Note that Hudson’s new study was funded by the pharmaceutical company Ortho-McNeil, which has tested its antiepilepsy drug, topiramate, for effectiveness in binge eating disorder, with initially positive results.
