Is it possible that an uncontrollable urge to eat a lot of food is caused by an impaired brain circuit? If that were the case, patients with Parkinson's disease might be more to blame for their weight gain than binge eating disorder sufferers.
Doctors tried a new treatment that was different from anything they've tried before to help people with eating disorders. Dr. Halpern said at least 3% of the population has it.
Deep brain stimulation is often used to quell tremors in patients with Parkinson's. It involves putting wires in the brain. The wires are hidden under the skin where they are not noticed. The device only stimulates the brain when it senses a signal to start a binge.
The pilot study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published earlier this year in the journal Nature Medicine, involves two women and will be expanded in a few months to include four more people with binge eating disorder. The study would take a long time.
Two women who had their devices implanted a year ago will be monitored for three years. Both wanted to keep their devices even though they had the option to have them removed after a year.
One of them, Robyn Baldwin, said she was a "chunko child" who had always been big. She tried a lot of different diet plans. She used to only eat the shakes for a while.
She had a surgery in 2003 in which the stomach is altered to make it smaller and harder to digest. Many people have lost weight because of it. The weight she lost came back to her.
One of the patients from the study lives in the state of California. She tried a lot of different diet and remedies to lose weight. She was given a month at a vegan camp by her parents. She walked 10 miles daily.
Ms. Tolly had surgery. The weight crept back on despite losing 100 pounds.
She said it has to be more than that.
It was in both of their cases. When they occasionally start on a bag of chips or a gallon of ice cream and just keep going, they're not binging. They are in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It involves going to bed multiple times a night. The binges are accompanied by a feeling of being almost in another state in which they lose control and consume large amounts of food. They binge in secret. When the binge is over, it is common to feel disgust.
There is a movement to use deep brain stimulation to treat a variety of disorders that may be caused by electrical signals in the brain. Dr. Edward Chang is a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco.
The brain circuits that regulate the symptoms of some disorders are found in small areas. Deep brain stimulation can be studied thanks to the discoveries.
The experiment was led by Dr. Halpern. They started with mice that were prone to being obese. The animals had been fed, but when butter was put in their cage, they ate more than 25% of their daily calories in one hour.
The nucleus accumbens is located in the center of the brain and is a key hub of the brain's reward center. The nucleus accumbens became active just before a binge. The researchers were able to stop the mice from binging after using deep brain stimulation.
Is it possible that it would work in humans?
The group of scientists started advertising for people who had regained all their weight after surgery because they thought it might be related to binge eating disorder.
Ms. Baldwin and Ms. Tolly said yes. They didn't realize they had a disorder. Lauren Breithaupt is a psychologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital who studies eating disorders.
Both Ms. Baldwin and Ms. Tolly weighed more when they met with the doctor.
The researchers gave each woman a feast of their favorite foods when they weren't hungry. For Ms. Tolly, thoughts of her mother recently died, and for Ms. Baldwin, thoughts of her work schedule. As part of the study, they agreed to allow the researchers to make them binge drink.
The researchers recorded electrical impulses in the women's nucleus accumbens as they ate and found that the women felt a loss of control. It is possible that a brain stimulator could have prevented the women from wanting to binge.
The investigators did not tell Ms. Baldwin and Ms. Tolly when the devices would be activated. The women said they knew when the devices were used. They no longer felt like they needed to eat a lot.
Their weight is starting to come down. They are both saying that they are eating differently.
She said that it was not self control. I make smarter decisions. She hasn't begun eating food that she didn't like. I'm not going to sign up for it.
Ms. Baldwin noticed a change in her eating habits. She used to eat peanut butter from the jar with a spoon. She doesn't want it anymore.
She said she would get these habits if she went to a pharmacy to get a prescription.
She said she could not think about ice cream after the device was activated.
Her tastes have changed as well. Her favorite food is not sweet anymore.
Ms. Baldwin thinks about food a lot. I am no longer a craver.
Does direct brain stimulation work for people with extreme binge eating?
The doctor is cautious.
She stated that it was just two people.
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