"While abnormalities in central norepinephrine regulation may contribute to abnormal eating patterns in bulimia nervosa, alterations in function of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system could contribute to the decreased metabolic rate and increased anxiety responses previously reported in these patients. To assess beta-adrenergic receptor sensitivity in bulimic patients, we studied cardiovascular and hormonal responses to acute pharmacological challenge with intravenously administered isoproterenol. In comparison to healthy controls, binge-abstinent bulimic patients had significantly reduced mean baseline plasma norepinephrine level, pulse rate, and systolic blood pressure, and significantly increased chronotropic responses to isoproterenol infusion. Decreased sympathoneural activity may contribute to a tendency for bulimic patients to maintain body weight despite low caloric intake."
Bulimia nervosa (BN), also known simply as bulimia, is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors, such as self-induced vomiting or fasting, to prevent weight gain.
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that nutrition intervention, including nutritional counseling, by a registered dietitian (RD) is an essential component of the team treatment of patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and other eating disorders during assessment and treatment across the continuum of care."
"The new criterion circulating among teenage girls: If you get rid of it through exercise rather than purging or laxatives, you don’t have a problem. Theirs is a world in which groups of dorm girls will plough voraciously through pizzas, chewing and then spitting out each mouthful. Do they have a disorder? Of course not-look, they’re eating pizza."
"The search for distinctive patterns, profiles, and abnormalities underlying anorexia nervosa and bulimia is thus not, as man researchers claim, “conceptually” demanded; a myriad of heterogeneous factors, “family resemblances” rather than essential features, unpredictable combinations of elements, may be at work in determining who turns out to be most susceptible. It may be, too, that patterns and profiles could one be assembled but are now breaking apart under the pressure of an increasingly coercive mass culture with its compelling, fabricated images of beauty and success."
"Findings indicate that women with BN and co-morbid APD may be characterized by interpersonal submissiveness and avoidance, affective instability, self-harm, behavioural inhibition in response to threat and lower sensitivity to serotonergic activation. These findings may indicate common, serotonergic factors, associated with social submissiveness, behavioural inhibition to threat and BN."
"Studies comparing PSH with GSH found no significant differences between treatment groups at end of treatment or follow-up. Comparison between different types of PSH/GSH found significant differences on eating disorder symptoms but not on bingeing/purging abstinence rates."
"Of the eating disorders, anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the ones that have made adolescent patients-often females and aged younger and younger-seek for help. This help is provided through a multidisciplinary treatment involving psychiatrists, psychologists and dietists. Psychotherapy has shown to be an efficient component for these patients improvement."