NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The recently approved appetite-suppressing drug, dexfenfluramine, also known as Redux, can help obese patients with an eating disorder to stop binge eating, a new study suggests.
But it's too early to recommend the diet drug to such patients, experts caution.
"Although the results are encouraging, they are preliminary and must be replicated in a larger group before d-fenfluramine can be confidently prescribed for the treatment of binge eating disorder," reported lead author Dr. Albert Stunkard, of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Of the 28 obese women in the study, those who took dexfenfluramine reduced their rate of binge eating 3 times faster than women taking a placebo, according to the report in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Overall, 80%, or 8 out of 10 women in the study stopped binge eating completely while taking the drug, compared to just 33% of those on a placebo. However, the obese women did not lose weight while taking dexfenfluramine and resumed binge eating once the drug was discontinued.
Binge eating is characterized by eating large amounts of food in a short period of time, followed by feelings of guilt and a lack of control. However, such individuals -- who tend to be obese -- do not vomit or abuse laxatives as in other eating disorders.
So why didn't the women lose weight while taking the diet drug? It may be because the researchers tried to minimize the women's expectation of weight loss, according to Stunkard.
"Such expectations appear to play a role in the response to appetite-suppressant medication," he said. But even when binge-eaters expect to lose weight while taking the drug, it may not happen. In two previous studies, those who were told to expect weight loss didn't shed any more pounds than those taking a placebo.
The report also showed there is a strong psychological component to binge eating. During a 4 month period when all participants took a dummy medication they believed to be a diet drug, the average number of binges dropped 70%, from 6 binge eating episodes a week to 1.8. While the study initially included 50 women, 44% were excluded because they no longer fit the definition for the disorder after taking a placebo.
SOURCE: American Journal of Psychiatry (1996;153:1455-1459)
