Am J Psychiatry 1984; 141:1224-1227
Copyright © 1984 by American Psychiatric Association
Affective disorder in the families of women with normal weight bulimia
SL Stern, KN Dixon, E Nemzer, MD Lake, RA Sansone, DJ Smeltzer, S Lantz and SS Schrier
The authors determined the lifetime prevalence of affective disorder in the
first- and second-degree relatives, excluding children, of 27 bulimic women
who had never had anorexia nervosa and 27 women with no history of an
eating disorder. Family diagnoses were made blind to the proband's
diagnosis. The prevalence of affective disorder was 9% in the relatives of
the bulimic probands and 10% in the relatives of the control probands, a
nonsignificant difference. These findings are in contrast to reports of an
increased prevalence of affective disorder in the relatives of patients
with anorexia nervosa.
