Overvaluation of shape and weight in binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and sub-threshold bulimia nervosa

Increasing empirical evidence supports the validity of binge eating disorder (BED), a research diagnosis in the appendix of DSM-IV, and its inclusion as a distinct and formal diagnosis in the DSM-V. A pressing question regarding the specific criteria for BED diagnosis is whether, like bulimia nervosa (BN), it should be characterized by overvaluation of shape and weight. This study compared features of eating disorders in 436 treatment-seeking women comprising four groups: 195 BED participants who overvalue their shape/weight, 129 BED participants with subclinical levels of overvaluation, 61 BN participants, and 51 participants with sub-threshold BN. The BED clinical overvaluation group had significantly higher levels of specific eating disorder psychopathology than the three other groups which did not differ significantly from each other. Findings suggest that overvaluation of shape and weight should not be considered as a required criterion for BED because this would exclude a substantial proportion of BED patients with clinically significant problems. Rather, overvaluation of shape and weight warrants consideration either as a diagnostic specifier or as a dimensional severity rating as it provides important information about severity within BED.     

Correlation between Changes in Stress-Induced Corticosterone Secretion and GR mRNA Levels

The current study was conducted to determine the potential relationship between stress-induced corticosterone secretion and corticosteroid receptor mRNA levels after 5 days of intermittent stress. In particular, we were interested in the rate at which animals terminate a stress response, and how this termination may be altered by repeated stress. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to either 5 days of restraint stress or 5 days of an unpredictable stress paradigm. Restraint-stress induced corticosterone secretion was measured on Days 1 and 5 in both groups, and animals were killed on Day 6. Glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and mineralocorticoid (MR) mRNA levels were determined using in-situ hybridization techniques. Five days of restraint stress caused an habituation of the plasma corticosterone response to stress measured 60 and 90 min post-stress initiation; this pattern of corticosterone secretion was not observed in the animals subjected to unpredictable stress. Five days of either stress paradigm did not alter MR mRNA levels measured within the hippocampus or GR mRNA levels within the hippocampus or the medial parvocellular division of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (mpPVN). However, an individual's GR mRNA levels measured within the CA1/2 region of the hippocampus and the mpPVN were significantly correlated with the degree of habituation of the corticosterone response to stress measured on Day 5. This suggests that an increase in the rate of termination of the stress response and levels of GR within the hippocampus and mpPVN may be functionally related.     

Action and emotion in everyday life

This study of naturally occurring behaviour employed a "beeper technique" to investigate the actions carried out by 152 subjects in eight different groups, viz. adult students, employed students who were also parents, unemployed, art students, doctoral students, alcoholics, retired people and a control group. Actions were sampled for seven subsequent days, five times per day between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. at randomly selected occasions. Each action was rated on a number of variables, shortly after it was sampled (median delay approximately 10 min). Some of the findings were: Time allocation corresponded well with national estimates. Being under situational control was highly aversive. Instrumental and consummatory orientations correlated positively. The background variables were, on the whole, only rather weakly related to action ratings, but it was found that women and retired persons tended to report a higher level of well-being.     

Documentary Bioethics: Visual Narratives for Generations X and Y

Narrative bioethics is primarily understood to involve storytelling through the use of literature. This article suggests that other forms of media are necessary to convey stories of an ethical nature to an audience broader than one being trained as medical professionals. "Documentary bioethics" is a manner to present and interpret stories of an ethical nature using forms of popular electronic media in a reality-based documentary style to society at large, specifically Generations X and Y.     

Correlations between perfectionism and coping strategies in response to researcher-selected vignettes or participant-selected events

Participants, taking classes that met general learning requirements, were 133 men and 240 women from two private, Catholic, liberal arts college campuses. The sample consisted of 131 first-year students, 91 sophomores, 70 juniors, and 81 seniors. The sample was 95.2% Euro-American, consistent with the populations of these campuses, and 98.1% were between 18 and 22 years old. There were five different survey packets. One packet asked participants to report how they coped with a self-selected situation from their own past (Standard Condition). The other four packets asked participants how they would cope with one of four vignettes developed by the researchers. Two vignettes described common social situations, and two described common academic situations a college student would find stressful. The packets were randomly distributed among participants. Several significant correlations between perfectionism and coping strategies were found for the 4 vignettes, but none were found under the Standard Condition. Were there a self-serving bias in participants' reports of past situations in which they remember coping successfully, correlations would be diminished between coping and perfectionism in the Standard Condition.     

Eating disorder diagnoses: empirical approaches to classification

Decisions about the classification of eating disorders have significant scientific and clinical implications. The eating disorder diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) reflect the collective wisdom of experts in the field but are frequently not supported in empirical studies and do not capture the disorders of eating experienced by most people with an eating disorder. Statistical approaches to classification such as latent class analysis and taxometrics can help to create a classification system with greater scientific validity and clinical utility. The field would benefit from direct empirical comparisons of different classification schemes with various clinical and scientific validators. Such studies would enable the creators of the next DSM eating disorder classification to increase understanding of the advantages and disadvantages associated with choosing various diagnostic criteria sets for the eating disorders.