{"id":2799,"date":"2015-02-12T16:30:42","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T21:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/?p=2799"},"modified":"2015-02-19T16:40:04","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T21:40:04","slug":"beating-the-binge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/2015\/02\/12\/beating-the-binge\/","title":{"rendered":"Beating the Binge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alzheimer\u2019s drug may reduce urge to eat compulsively<\/h2>\n
\n
\"Dr.<\/em><\/div>\n

BU professors Pietro Cottone and Valentina Sabino hope their research could eventually lead to new treatment for the disorder. Photo by Michael D. Spencer.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

Binge-eating disorder affects nearly 10 million American adults, by some estimates. It\u2019s a vicious condition in which people repeatedly eat huge amounts of food\u2014often high-calorie sweets and\/or fatty snacks\u2014in a couple hours or less. Perhaps the worst part of the disorder is that each binge leads to feelings of embarrassment, self-disgust, and depression.<\/p>\n

Now, new research from Boston University School of Medicine (MED) scientists, published online in Neuropsychopharmacology<\/a>,<\/em> demonstrates that an Alzheimer\u2019s drug called memantine may reduce the impulse to binge eat by acting on an area of brain associated with addictive behavior. The research, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse<\/a> and the National Institute of Mental Health<\/a>, may eventually lead to new treatments for the disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disorder resembles addiction more than any other eating disorders. Binge eaters understand the consequences of their behavior but they can\u2019t stop. It\u2019s a compulsion,\u201d says senior author Pietro Cottone<\/a>, a MED associate professor of pharmacology and psychiatry and co-director of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cottone, who has been studying addiction for over a decade, says that binge eating triggers patterns of chemical responses in the brain that are similar to those in drug and alcohol addiction. In all these disorders, he says, a region called the nucleus accumbens, which provides a communication link between the emotional and reasoning centers of the brain, is particularly important because of its role in eliciting and modulating behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you eat, have sex, do drugs\u2014all that stuff\u2014this area gets activated,\u201d says Cottone. During binge-eating episodes, the nucleus accumbens does not function properly. That\u2019s where the Alzheimer\u2019s drug memantine comes in.<\/p>\n

Memantine blocks receptors in the brain that bond with glutamate, a neurotransmitter known to stimulate neurons. In Alzheimer\u2019s disease, dying brain cells release excess glutamate, which overstimulates healthy cells and can kill them. So, by blocking glutamate receptors, memantine protects healthy cells in the Alzheimer\u2019s brain. Cottone suspected that the drug, by blocking glutamate receptors, could also curb binge eating. With glutamate locked out, he believed the nucleus accumbens wouldn\u2019t reinforce the stimuli associated with junk food so much, and the urge to binge eat should fade.<\/p>\n

Cottone tested the hypothesis with two groups of rats. One group was fed a diet of regular rat food. The others also got regular food, but for one hour a day they were also offered junk food, which contained an extra dose of sugar. It was the rat equivalent of jelly beans and gumdrops, and \u201cthey loved it,\u201d says Cottone.<\/p>\n

Within days, the junk food rats started bingeing. \u201cWe made them into binge eaters just by giving them access for one hour,\u201d says Cottone. \u201cIt was insane.\u201d And even worse: the more the rats binged on junk food, the less they ate the regular food. \u201cExactly what happens in people, we did with rats,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Cottone wondered if the binge-eating rats would take more risks to reach their junk food. He put the rats into a box that was half dark and half brightly lit. Rats are nocturnal and will usually do anything to avoid bright light: when Cottone put a bowl of junk food in the middle of the bright box, the regular-chow rats wouldn\u2019t touch it. \u201cThey don\u2019t even think about eating the food,\u201d says Cottone. \u201cThey were like, \u2018no way!\u2019\u201d But the binge eaters couldn\u2019t stop themselves\u2014they ran into the light, stuck their snouts into the junky kibble, and gobbled it up. \u201cThis is a lapse of judgment,\u201d says Cottone, who notes that such behavior is a hallmark of addiction. \u201cThey know the environment is potentially dangerous, but they go there anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this changed when memantine entered the mix. Scientists injected the drug into both groups of rats. In the regular-chow rats, it had no effect. But for the binge eaters, the changes were profound. Not only did their binge eating decrease dramatically, but they were no longer willing to take risks to get their junk food. The scientists found the same effect when they injected memantine directly into the shell of the nucleus accumbens.<\/p>\n

Cottone and his team hope that memantine may prove a useful treatment for binge-eating disorder, for which there are currently no FDA-approved drugs. \u201cIndividuals with binge-eating disorder have a very poor quality of life. Our study gives a better understanding of the underpinning neurobiological mechanisms of the disorder,\u201d says coauthor Valentina Sabino<\/a>, assistant professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at MED and co-director of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders.<\/p>\n

Although one small 2008 study in the International Journal of Eating Disorders<\/em><\/a> found that memantine may be useful for treating binge eating in humans, there has been little additional research in this area. \u201cWe hope that this paper will help revitalize this line of research,\u201d says Cottone, who anticipates seeing larger, more robust human trials in the future. \u201cWe need more pharmacological approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

A version of this story was published on <\/em>BU Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Author, Barbara Moran can be reached at bmoran@bu.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alzheimer\u2019s drug may reduce urge to eat compulsively BU professors Pietro Cottone and Valentina Sabino hope their research could eventually lead to new treatment for the disorder. Photo by Michael D. Spencer. Binge-eating disorder affects nearly 10 million American adults, by some estimates. It\u2019s a vicious condition in which people repeatedly eat huge amounts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7048,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[76,56,83,48,60,61,41,13,85,86,87,84,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7048"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2799"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2808,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions\/2808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/federal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}