That box of chocolate chip cookies you never should have purchased in the first place is sitting there on your kitchen table, luring you, taunting. Your period is due in two or three days and you feel grumpy, depressed, bloated.
You’re agonizing. “Just a…couple/two, three at the most” you think, knowing you’ll actually feel emotionally and physically better in a few minutes. And suddenly, half the box is gone. Horrified and ashamed, you put the box out of sight. But the next day, after a blow-up with a co-worker, it crosses your mind that at least you’ve got the cookies at home. And maybe you can do better at the health club next week.
If you’re like most people who have binge eating tendencies, you tell virtually no one, including your physician or psychotherapist. For this reason, an accurate estimate of people struggling with binge eating isn’t known. Since most binge eaters are overweight and currently almost 70% of US citizens are either overweight or obese, we can safely guess the number of binge eaters is (sorry for this) huge.
A group of characteristics separates binge eating from plain old unhealthful overeating. If any of these sound familiar, you may have some binge tendencies.
- Frequent episodes of eating what others would consider an abnormally large amount of food, like half a box of cookies or a whole container of Ben and Jerry’s.
- Often feeling you’re unable to control what or how much you’re eating.
- Eating much faster than usual.
- Eating until you’re uncomfortably full.
- Eating a large amount of food, even when you’re not actually hungry.
- Eating alone because you’re embarrassed by the quantity of food you’re eating.
- Feelings of disgust, depression, or guilt after overeating.
- Fluctuations in weight.
- Feelings of low self-esteem.
- Loss of sexual desire.
- Frequent dieting.
Self-medicating with food
Over the past few years, researchers in the field began to understand that binge eaters basically use food to self-medicate the symptoms of anxiety and depression. With this knowledge, treatment was aimed at solving the depression and anxiety, rather than using appetite suppressants to quell cravings.
What seemed most logical was a combination of psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) along with an antidepressant to increase the stress-buffering neurotransmitter serotonin.
CBT, when you find a therapist trained in it, is helpful. But the SSRI antidepressants (like Prozac, Lexapro, and Zoloft) often carry weight gain as a side effect, so something in this drug treatment was missing.
Enter glutamate
The newest research takes a hard look at a second brain chemical called glutamate. It’s classified as an “excitatory” neurotransmitter, since a certain amount of glutamate is needed for mental focus and concentration. Not having enough glutamate (or having a problem with the glutamate receptors in your brain so that the amount you do have doesn’t work as well as it should) is linked to such apparently unrelated conditions as adult attention deficit disorder, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and addictive behaviors.
Having too much glutamate isn’t good either. Again, the conditions seem unrelated and will remain so until we can uncover more. Fibromyalgia, familial tremor, and autism are all associated with excessive glutamine mechanisms.
The prescription drug Campral (acamprosate) is FDA-approved for alcohol addiction and works by raising glutamate levels in the brain. Psychiatrists are virtually the only prescribers of Campral, and some also prescribe it “off-label” for patients with serious binge-eating disorders. If you click through you’ll see that, as with virtually any prescription drug, Campral comes with side effects.
Boost glutamate without taking meds
There are also non-prescription ways to gently raise your brain’s glutamate level, and while research is limited, the results are promising:
- L-Glutamine is an amino acid that increases levels of glutamate and is especially useful for sugar and alcohol cravings. Dr. Andrew Weil’s website points out that glutamine has been used for alcohol cravings since the 1950s. The usual dose is 500 mg three times daily. It’s available in our apothecary.
- N-acetyl cysteine is an amino acid that works in the body as a precursor for the antioxidant glutathione. It seems to act by balancing out glutamate levels, and it’s currently used by nutritionally oriented psychiatrists as an add-on to prescription meds for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Binge eating really can be viewed as one of the OCDs. The most interesting recent use of N-acetyl cysteine is for trichotillomania, an OCD condition in which the patient obsessively plucks out her hair. The usual dose for obsessive behavior is 1,200 mg twice daily. Find it here.
- Black cohosh is a popular herb for the low estrogen that occurs before and during menopause. It’s also known by herbalists to reduce food cravings. Recent research has shown that women with low levels of estrogen at any time in their lives have more issues with binge eating than the rest of the population. If you’re having menstrual cycles, signs of low estrogen include scanty or irregular periods and mood issues during your PMS week. One recently published study using mice found that a form of estrogen that went directly to the serotonin receptors in the brain produced a drop in binge-eating behavior. You might be thinking you’re not a mouse, but in fact biochemically the mouse brain is spookily very much like our own. The researchers expressed reluctance to prescribe estrogen as a long-term treatment for binge eating because of its side effects, but this study does shed light on just why the estrogen-like herb black cohosh helps reduce food cravings and binge eating. The usual dose of black cohosh is one capsule daily.
- The acupuncture and herbs of Traditional Chinese Medicine have long been proven helpful for virtually any addictive or compulsive behavior, including binge eating and tobacco or alcohol addiction. When conventional Western scientists attempt to uncover how these therapies work, neurotransmitter adjustments are the common denominator.
I think you’ll agree that what’s happening behind the scenes with your binge eating tendencies is a lot more complicated than you may have considered. Just realize there’s hope. If you’ve got an issue with binge eating that you’ve been reluctant to confront, consider scheduling with us at WholeHealth Chicago. We’ve got three Cognitive Behavior Therapists (Dr. Janet Chandler, Dr. Meghan Roekle and Karen Fayden, LCSW), three nutritionists (Marla Feingold, Seanna Tully, and Marcy Kirshenbaum), and three practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Mari Stecker, Cindy Kudelka, and Helen Strietelmeier).
Be well,
David Edelberg, MD
Hmmmm…. the last two comments sound like plugs for the respective clinics. Exact same wording of the last two sentences..
HealthAdvocate
Around age 60 I noticed that my handwriting was getting smaller and I was writing faster. I also noticed a small tremor in my right hand. The doctor went over my different symptoms and he suspected I’d either had a small stroke or the beginnings of Parkinson ‘s disease. After finding a neurologist and some testing I was diagnosed with the beginning stages of Parkinson’s disease. That was 4 years ago. I take Sinimet four times a day to control my symptoms, which include falling, imbalance, gait problems, swallowing difficulties, and slurring of speech,This year, our family doctor started me on Mbeki Herbal Clinic Parkinson’s Disease Herbal mixture, 5 weeks into treatment I improved dramatically. At the end of the full treatment course, the disease is totally under control. No case of dementia, hallucination, weakness, muscle pain or tremors.
Sorice Madina
My wife was diagnosed of Parkinsons Disease at age 59. She had severe calf pain, muscle pain, tremors, slurred speech, frequent falls, loss of balance, difficulty in getting up from sitting position. She was put on Senemet for 6 months and then Siferol was introduced and replaced the Senemet. During this time span she was also diagnosed with dementia. She started having hallucinations, lost touch with reality.
This year, our family doctor started her on NewLife Clinic Parkinsons Disease Herbal mixture, 1 month into treatment she improved dramatically. At the end of the full treatment course, the disease is totally under control. No case of dementia, hallucination, weakness, muscle pain or tremors.
David Craven
David Craven
Michelle,
Thank you for sharing your experience, and congratulations for finding relief. Some of us have occasional binge tendencies around our menses, and not a full blown, life disrupting eating disorder (addiction). It is also possible to oversimplify by overgeneralizing one’s own story as a ‘catch all’ applicable to others.
Meg
While its good that you are bringing this topic to light, I worry that oversimplifying this by pointing at things like “glutamate” as the culprit or pointing to CBT as the simple “catch-all” for therapy waters down the real underlying problem(s) to which eating disorder behaviors are used to self medicate.
Its important to identify and treat eating disorders as addictions, no different than alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, etc. Ask anyone who has gone through 12-step, until that truth is faced, there is no short-cut, no amount of CBT or medicine or herbs or whatnot that will resolve the addiction itself.
How do I know? Because I am a recovering anorexic/bulimic and alcoholic. And Dr. E, if you really want to do a service to your patients, the very first thing you can do is assure your patients that there is no shame involved, that there is no judgement for the struggles and battles that your patients are fighting every day. The second most important thing is to help your patients find the right therapists, out-patient program, or even in-patient program to help them to deal with and recover from not only the addiction, but the underlying cause(s).
Until I dealt with mine own demons, I was convinced it was about the food, or diet, or . I was lucky that I found a therapist who guided me to an in-patient therapy program and then a dietitian who has been working with me since. I have been dealing with the underlying trauma that was the root of my eating disorders, and I am happy to say I am now over 6 years sober and abstinent.
And here’s the most important take away… I eat healthy, all my lab work continues to come in with good numbers, I am at my proper body weight, I feel good, and I dont deal with hunger issues. I dont buy cookies (anymore), yet I can have pizza in my diet if I choose to.
To those of you who think it an impossible goal… that it in their DNA, or its out of reach, or no one can possibly understand, I promise you… as alone as you may feel, someone else out there is going through the same thing and feels alone too. But I also promise you… if you want it, if you are willing to work for it… you can manage it.
It was life changing for me, and the reason I came to WHC as a patient in the first place. I hope that maybe this can inspire someone who might feel otherwise hopeless to believe that they can reach the other side of the “abyss”…
Michelle Tostig
Doc if I am a breast cancer survivor (7 years) I don’t think I should take the black cohosh. I just bought glutamine powder. How much do you suggest taking in powder form for over eating? I went to my pcm and she gave me Zoloft 50mg for depression 2 weeks ago, but haven’t started taking it yet. Started SamE, St John wart. Just don’t want to go down that road with AD. Wish o lived closer to Chicago!
Diane Engelhardt