Binge Eating Disorder: A 5-Year Retrospective Study on Experimental Drugs

Michelle N Levitan,1,2 Marcelo Papelbaum,2 Mauro G Carta,3 Jose C Appolinario,1 Antonio E Nardi1 1Psychiatry Institute/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 2Eating Disorders Department/Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel; 3Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche e Sanità Pubblica, Università Degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, ItalyCorrespondence: Michelle N Levitan Email milevitan@gmail.comAbstract: Binge eating disorder (BED) affects a significant rate of the general population causing a negative impact on their quality of life, weight, and self-esteem. Besides psychological treatments that compose the majority of the studies, pharmaceuticals have contributed to improve a host of clinical parameters, thus being an important component of the treatment. We opted to target the latest results by performing a review of the literature on the pharmacology for BED from the last 5 years. To achieve this goal, the terms: “binge eating disorder” and “treatment” were added to the PubMed database and the website clinicaltrials.gov. At least five drugs were either being tested or had already been recognized to improve BED symptoms – although only lisdexamfetamine is currently approved by the FDA to treat this condition. However, due to a better understanding of BED psychopathology in the last decade, it is notorious that improvement of eating-related symptoms is not the only desired target. Due to the significant comorbidity percentage (30%), weight loss is highly pursued, as well as the amelioration of clinical parameters which highlights the importance of having new agents combining both objectives.Keywords: binge eating disorder, treatment, pharmacological treatment