PHARMACOLOGICAL APPROACHES IN THE TREATMENT OF EATING DISORDERS

Important advances in the treatment of eating disorders, particularly bulimia nervosa, have been made during the past decade. Controlled tri als for bulimia nervosa have demonstrated significant benefit from sho rt-term pharmacotherapy with antidepressant medications and from short -term individual and group psychotherapies. Despite these advances, tr eatment of a patient often involves complex clinical decisions around such issues as choice of initial treatment modality, incomplete resolu tion of symptoms, and the role of long-term maintenance treatment. To address these questions, this review focuses primarily on summarizing results of published controlled trials of pharmacotherapy in patients with bulimia nervosa. In addition, it outlines the more limited litera ture on controlled pharmacotherapy trials for anorexia nervosa and for the provisionally identified syndrome of binge eating disorder.