Abstract

The Problem of Eating Disorders and Comorbid Psychostimulants Abuse: A Mini Review

Author(s): Domenico De Berardisa, Ilaria Matarazzo, Laura Orsolini, Alessandro Valchera, Carmine Tomasetti, Chiara Montemitro, Monica Mazza, Michele Fornaro, Alessandro Carano, Giampaolo Perna, Federica Vellante, Domenico Di Sante, Raffaella La Rovere, Giovanni Martinotti, Sabatino Trotta, Massimo Di Giannantonio

ABSTRACT
Comorbidity between substance use disorders (SUD) and eating disorders (ED) is extremely frequent in clinical practice, probably because they share similar psychopathological and neurophysiologic pathway. In particular, even if the amphetamine and other psychostimulants
use and abuse may be relatively common among patients affected with ED, the problem of abuse is often unrecognized and the current knowledge of this phenomenon is relatively low in the existing literature. Therefore, the aim of this mini-review was to provide a brief update on this topic. The results of this review pointed out that ED in comorbidity with psychostimulants abuse showed worst prognosis compared to ED alone and no definitive and well-established treatment in comorbid ED–SUD is so far available. Stimulants use and misuse seem to be preferred in anorexia with purging behavior or binge eating disorder. Thus, everyone who is managing patients with ED should always investigate a possible psychostimulant use or abuse in such subjects in order to formulate a correct and clear diagnosis and provide tailored
“dual-diagnosis” treatments.