Antidepressants may help night eaters

Treatment with an antidepressant may help some people with a condition that causes them to wake up in the night and eat. Night eating affects a significant proportion of people who struggle with weight and obesity. People with night eating syndrome lack a normal appetite during the day, but they have insomnia and increased appetite during the night. One study found that people with night eating syndrome consume more than half of their daily calories after 8:00 p.m. Zoloft (sertraline) is a member of a class of drugs called SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. These drugs battle depression by acting on the brain chemical serotonin. There have been hints that the serotonin system in the brain might somehow be involved in the night eating syndrome, so researchers decided to test the effect of Zoloft in people with the disorder. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Weight and Eating Disorders Program in Philadelphia did a study with 17 people with night eating syndrome. Treatment with the antidepressant seemed to help some people with the condition. It was found that the symptoms improved or disappeared in nearly half of participants after taking the antidepressant Zoloft for 12 weeks. Participants woke up less often during the night and ate less often during the night. The five people who experienced a complete remission of symptoms lost an average of 4.8 kilograms (more than 10 pounds) during the study.

The findings suggest that Zoloft helps some people with night eating syndrome, but the study is only preliminary. The drug needs to be tested head-to-head with a placebo, which contains no medication. The dose of Zoloft used in the study - an average of 188 milligrams per day - is higher than the 50 mg to 150 mg typically used to treat major depression.