THE EATING DISORDERS AS ADDICTION - A PSYCHOBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

A number of theories have been proposed to explain the substantial com orbidity between the eating disorders and the substance-related disord ers. Among them is the claim that self-starvation-exacerbated by exces sive exercising-is itself an addiction to the body's endogenous opioid s. While efforts have also been made to identify an ''addictive person ality,'' attempts to establish whether eating-disordered patients shar e these characteristics have met with mixed success. The present study was designed to determine the degree to which anorexic and bulimic pa tients display addictive personality characteristics, and whether thes e traits are useful in predicting the severity of the patients' weight preoccupation and their degree of excessive exercising. Results confi rmed that both anorexic and bulimic patients had high scores on the Ad diction Scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and that addic tiveness and obsessive-compulsiveness were related simultaneously to w eight preoccupation and excessive exercising in both patient groups. F indings are discussed within the framework of the auto-addiction opioi d theory, and they highlight the similarities and differences in the p ersonality structure of the eating-disorder subtypes. (C) 1998 Elsevie r Science Ltd.