Household food insecurity is associated with binge-eating disorder and obesity.

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity stems from limited financial resources. Yet, paradoxically, food insecurity is associated with overeating and excess weight. One subcategory of overeating is binge eating, which includes eating an unusually large amount of food while feeling a concurrent sense of loss of control. Associations between binge-eating disorder and food insecurity are not known, yet this is important to examine because binge eating is associated with more severe mental and physical health problems than overeating or obesity alone. METHOD: Survey respondents (N = 1,250) were recruited online. Participants were categorized into study groups: healthy weight (HW), binge-eating disorder (BED), and obesity (OB). Using HW as a reference group, hierarchical logistic regressions evaluated the extent to which low and very low food security were associated with BED and OB. RESULTS: Low food security and very low food security were both associated with increased likelihood of BED and OB group membership. CONCLUSIONS: Results highlight the need to devote resources towards policy revisions, preventative interventions, and psychiatric treatments aimed at decreasing the overall association of food insecurity with BED and obesity among low-income Americans.

Aberrant Cerebral Blood Flow in Response to Hunger and Satiety in Women Remitted from Anorexia Nervosa.

The etiology of pathological eating in anorexia nervosa (AN) remains poorly understood. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) is an indirect marker of neuronal function. In healthy adults, fasting increases CBF, reflecting increased delivery of oxygen and glucose to support brain metabolism. This study investigated whether women remitted from restricting-type AN (RAN) have altered CBF in response to hunger that may indicate homeostatic dysregulation contributing to their ability to restrict food. We compared resting CBF measured with pulsed arterial spin labeling in 21 RAN and 16 healthy comparison women (CW) when hungry (after a 16-h fast) and after a meal. Only remitted subjects were examined to avoid the confounding effects of malnutrition on brain function. Compared to CW, RAN demonstrated a reduced difference in the Hungry - Fed CBF contrast in the right ventral striatum, right subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (pcorr < 0.05) and left posterior insula (punc < 0.05); RAN had decreased CBF when hungry versus fed, whereas CW had increased CBF when hungry versus fed. Moreover, decreased CBF when hungry in the left insula was associated with greater hunger ratings on the fasted day for RAN. This represents the first study to show that women remitted from AN have aberrant resting neurovascular function in homeostatic neural circuitry in response to hunger. Regions involved in homeostatic regulation showed group differences in the Hungry - Fed contrast, suggesting altered cellular energy metabolism in this circuitry that may reduce motivation to eat.