![]() ![]() She also tends to swing between two extremes in diet: a highly restrictive diet or out-of-control binge-eating. This includes a pattern of forgetting to eat until she was starving-which would often lead to over-eating-and difficulties with staying organized enough to eat three balanced meals a day. “You get that dopamine hit, you get that sense of reward.”įor Weber, the link between the two disorders has been a complex one, one that ties into a number of food-related issues that commonly plague people with ADHD. ![]() “In the short term, it works,” says Sarah Greenberg, a psychotherapist with the organization, which offers resources for people with learning differences, such as ADHD. Given that people with ADHD are often under-stimulated, which leads to low motivation, eating can turn into one of the very few activities that feels rewarding. When the reduced response to rewards in general that is seen in ADHD is combined with a heightened response to food in particular, this can create a situation where food becomes a way to self-medicate. For people with binge-eating disorder, studies suggest that they respond more intensely to the reward of food than others. “We seek reward differently, but we also respond to reward differently.” For people with ADHD, their brains respond less intensely to rewards, which means they need a much larger reward to become motivated, compared to their peers without ADHD. The complex connection between binge eating disorder and ADHD is due to several factors common in patients with ADHD, such as difficulties with emotional regulation, impulsivity, and reward processing.Īs a number of studies suggest, the link between these disorders is also thought to be related to the ways in which the brains of people with both conditions process rewards.įor people with ADHD, “our reward processing center does not process rewards like your average bear,” Lentzsch Parcells says, who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 17. ![]() The two conditions intersect when patients born with ADHD develop a binge-eating disorder later in life, often due to a mixture of genetic and environmental factors. Some of the symptoms of ADHD also include an increased susceptibility for addictive behaviors. People with ADHD have difficulty planning, differentiating high versus low priority tasks, recalibrating plans due to last-minute complications, and completing long-term plans. “Once you start, you cannot stop.”ĪDHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the parts of the brain that controls executive function. “It’s more an impulsivity issue,” says Cesar Soutullo, a psychiatrist at UTHealth Houston who specializes in treating ADHD. Patients with binge eating disorder will often report eating beyond a feeling of fullness, to the point that it becomes a compulsion to keep eating, in spite of a desire to stop, and in spite of intense feelings of embarrassment or regret. “Just like every single person with ADHD is different, every single person with an eating disorder is different.” The role of impulsivityīinge eating disorder, which is defined as habitually eating large amounts of food in a short amount of time, is characterized by out-of-control behaviors, including feelings of shame or remorse. “Like so many of these issues, it’s multifactorial, and it’s also somewhat person dependent,” says Carolyn Lentzsch Parcells, a pediatrician in Texas who specializes in treating patients with ADHD and eating disorders. As ADHD diagnoses have increased in recent years, especially in adult women such as Weber, many are starting to realize some of the ways in which their disorder increases their risk for developing other comorbidities. “It makes so much sense once you start connecting the dots,” Weber says.Īlthough there’s still a lot we don’t know about the connection between ADHD and binge eating disorder, there is a high degree of overlap between the two conditions an estimated 30 percent of patients with binge eating disorder also meet the criteria for ADHD. Weber, who developed binge eating disorder as an adult, quickly realized that a significant portion of her challenges around food-like failing to recognize hunger cues-were related to having ADHD. When Katy Weber, a health coach who works with patients with binge eating disorder, was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at 45, some of her major struggles in life started to fall into place. ![]()
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