Am J Psychiatry 1993; 150:969-971
Copyright © 1993 by American Psychiatric Association
Amount of calories retained after binge eating and vomiting
WH Kaye, TE Weltzin, LK Hsu, CW McConaha and B Bolton
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh PA 15213.
While caloric consumption during binge eating has been measured, it is not
known how many of the calories are retained in the gastrointestinal tract
after vomiting. In 17 normal weight bulimic patients, there appeared to be
a ceiling on the number of calories retained after vomiting. That is,
whether or not bulimic patients had small (mean = 1,549 kcal, SD = 505) or
large (mean = 3,530 kcal, SD = 438) binges, they retained similar amounts
of kilocalories (mean = 1,128, SD = 497, versus mean = 1,209, SD = 574,
respectively) after vomiting.
