Eating Disorders Blog

Sleep eating is characterized by sleepwalking and nocturnal overeating. Individuals who suffer from sleep eating are unaware of their own activity during the night, which usually includes roaming the house and excessive eating of food and even non-food items. Although sleep eating is a recognized sleep-related disorder, some health experts believe that it is also a type of eating disorder. Sleep eaters have common risk factors including emotional distress, exhaustion, anger, and anxiety. Individuals with this condition are at risk for the same health complications as compulsive overeaters, including excessive weight gain. However, sleep eaters are also at risk for injury related to their unconscious state such as falling, choking while eating, injury from preparing food, and starting a fire. Experts usually refer to sleep eating as a nocturnal sleep-related disorder (NS-RED) and sleep-eating syndrome. Sleep eating is fairly uncommon, and is classified as parasomnia, an arousal disorder. The activities of sleep eating are performed in a state of arousal from slow wave sleep.

(Source: www.examiner.com)

Labels: eating disorder, sleep eating

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Sleep eating disorders may have to do with the shutdown of the brain's frontal lobes during sleep. The remainder of the brain remains active and direct sleep eaters to get out of bed and find food, according to research from Dr. Carlos Schenck, a psychiatrist who has spent 20 years researching this topic.

"They can get up, they see their environment," Dr. Schenck said, "and they know where the kitchen is. However, they have no judgment, no inhibition - and that's the problem."

As part of his research, Dr. Schenck videotapes people who "sleep eat." When they watch themselves, their tapes are often quite upsetting to them.

"Patients who have a sleep behavioral disorder such as sleep eating, when they see the tape of themselves, they are truly shocked, saying, "My God, I didn't realize I was capable of doing this,'" said Dr. Schenck.

Sleep eaters usually have no memory of what happened or why they ate strange substances such as Elmer's glue and SOS soap pads. Some create dangers for themselves, for example, the patient who set fire to his house when he tried to cook napkins in his toaster.

"People have also cut their fingers chopping food," the psychiatrist said. "We're talking about major risk of injury during the night from both sleep eating and the associated sleep walking."

Dr. Schenck said that sleep disorders remain a mystery even to him, although he is one of the foremost experts in the world.

"It's not about willpower," he said. "It's not a psychological problem. It's a major physiological force coming from within your brain and body to eat at night so inappropriately."
 

Labels: sleep, sleep eating

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