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The role of loss of control eating in purging disorder

OBJECTIVE: Purging Disorder (PD), an Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder,(1) is characterized by recurrent purging in the absence of binge eating. Though objectively large binge episodes are not present, individuals with PD may experience a loss of control (LOC) while eating a normal or small amounts of food. The present study sought to examine the role of LOC eating in PD using archival data from 101 women with PD. METHOD: Participants completed diagnostic interviews and self-report questionnaires. Analyses examined the relationship between LOC eating and eating disorder features, psychopathology, personality traits, and impairment, in bivariate models and then in multivariate models controlling for purging frequency, age, and body mass index. RESULTS: Across bivariate and multivariate models, LOC eating frequency was associated with greater disinhibition around food, hunger, depressive symptoms, negative urgency, and distress and impairment. DISCUSSION: LOC eating is a clinically significant feature of PD and should be considered in future definitions of PD. Future research should examine whether LOC eating better represents a dimension of severity in PD or a specifier that may impact treatment response or course

Incremental validity of the episode size criterion in binge-eating definitions: An examination in women with purging syndromes

OBJECTIVE: Of the two primary features of binge eating, loss of control (LOC) eating is well validated while the role of eating episode size is less clear. Given the ICD-11 proposal to eliminate episode size from the binge-eating definition, the present study examined the incremental validity of the size criterion, controlling for LOC. METHOD: Interview and questionnaire data come from four studies of 243 women with bulimia nervosa (n=141) or purging disorder (n=102). Hierarchical linear regression tested if the largest reported episode size, coded in kilocalories, explained additional variance in eating disorder features, psychopathology, personality traits, and impairment, holding constant LOC eating frequency, age, and body mass index (BMI). Analyses also tested if episode size moderated the association between LOC eating and these variables. RESULTS: Holding LOC constant, episode size explained significant variance in disinhibition, trait anxiety, and eating disorder-related impairment. Episode size moderated the association of LOC eating with purging frequency and depressive symptoms, such that, in the presence of larger eating episodes, LOC eating was more closely associated with these features. Neither episode size nor its interaction with LOC explained additional variance in BMI, hunger, restraint, shape concerns, state anxiety, negative urgency, or global functioning. DISCUSSION: Taken together, results support the incremental validity of the size criterion, in addition to and in combination with LOC eating, for defining binge-eating episodes in purging syndromes. Future research should examine the predictive validity of episode size in both purging and non-purging eating disorders (e.g., binge eating disorder) to inform nosological schemes

mcaGUI: microbial community analysis R-Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Abstract Summary: Microbial communities have an important role in natural ecosystems and have an impact on animal and human health. Intuitive graphic and analytical tools that can facilitate the study of these communities are in short supply. This article introduces Microbial Community Analysis GUI, a graphical user interface (GUI) for the R-programming language (R Development Core Team, 2010). With this application, researchers can input aligned and clustered sequence data to create custom abundance tables and perform analyses specific to their needs. This GUI provides a flexible modular platform, expandable to include other statistical tools for microbial community analysis in the future. Availability: The mcaGUI package and source are freely available as part of Bionconductor at http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/mcaGUI.html Contact:  [email protected]; [email protected] Supplementary Information:  Supplementary data and figures are available at Bioinformatics online.</jats:p