Little-known purging disorder is often missed
Condition is like bulimia, but sufferers are of normal weight and don’t binge
An Iowa researcher is studying a little-known eating disorder that some doctors may miss: purging disorder.
Though similar to women with bulimia, patients who fit this description don’t binge-eat. Yet they feel compelled to purge, usually by vomiting, even after eating only a small or normal amount of food, said Pamela Keel, the University of Iowa researcher who led a study on the subject.
Keel, a psychology professor, and colleagues from Iowa and the Harvard Medical School describe their research in this month’s issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Purging disorder is new in the sense that it has not been officially recognized as a unique condition in the classification of eating disorders. But it’s not a new problem,” Keel said. “Women were struggling with purging disorder long before we began studying it.”
Revising diagnosis criteria
If further study supports that it is a distinct disorder, Keel said the American Psychiatric Association could revise its criteria for diagnosing eating disorders. That’s important because doctors could then better screen these patients and identify treatments for them. Otherwise, they might be missed because they are normal weight and don’t report binge-eating, she said.
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