Posted by jrbecker on March 20, 2003, at 13:02:00
Study Links Binge Eating to Mutation in a Gene
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/20/health/20GENE.html
BOSTON, March 19 — Binge eaters who say they cannot help it may have a point.
A study suggests a gene may contribute to the cause of binge eating in some people. Researchers said they hoped the finding would point the way to a pill that could bring appetites under control.
The Swiss-German-American study makes the strongest case yet that a genetic mutation can cause an eating disorder, the researchers say. Researchers generally believe that eating behavior is complex and cultural in its causes.
"Willpower is not always important to reduce weight," said Dr. Fritz Horber, the leader of the binge eating study at the Hirslanden Clinic in Zurich. "Some people can by willpower. Some cannot, and I think these patients have a hard time."
The study is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers have been trying to understand the reasons for an epidemic of obesity, which raises the risk for heart disease, diabetes and many other ailments. Abundant high-calorie foods and sedentary habits are widely blamed for the surge.
However, some researchers have also begun to link several genes to obesity. Increasingly, eating problems are thought to stem from a subtle interaction of lifestyle and multiple genes.
Probably the most common eating disorder, binge eating strikes up to four million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health. Binge eaters, who are usually but not always overweight, frequently and compulsively stuff themselves, often in secret, and feel ashamed afterward.
In the study, the researchers focused on a gene previously linked to obesity. Known as the melanocortin 4 receptor gene, it makes a protein by that name that helps stimulate appetite in the brain's hunger-regulating hypothalamus. If a mutated gene makes too little protein, the body feels too much hunger.
The researchers considered 469 severely obese white adults, a quarter of them binge eaters. The disorder was much more common among the 5 percent with the mutated gene.
Eric Ravussin, a Louisiana State University researcher on obesity genetics, said that without more biochemical proof, he remained "a little bit skeptical" that the mutation — and not others nearby on the same chromosome — are the syndrome's precise cause.
But Dr. Joel Habener, a diabetes expert at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital who was one of the writers of an accompanying editorial, said the Swiss-led study demonstrated either the "genetic cause or a very strong association."
Dr. Habener agreed with the researchers, who said future drugs acting like the melanocortin 4 receptor protein might compensate for the genetic defect.
poster:jrbecker
thread:210925
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030319/msgs/210925.html