Salivary response to olfactory food stimuli in anorexics and bulimics.
Salivary response to olfactory food stimuli was assessed in controls and in anorexia nervosa and bulimia in-patients before and after two months of treatment. Before treatment, anorexics salivated less then controls while bulimics salivated more than controls. Following treatment, the salivary responses of eating-disordered subjects were much closer to controls. Salivary response to food was correlated with a measure of variability in caloric consumption. There may be two styles of dietary restraint: strict, unrelenting dieting, or the "dieting drone", exemplified by anorexic patients, and variable, "fence-sitting" dietary restraint, exemplified by bulimic patients. It is suggested that this two-style theory is able to account for past contradictory findings of heightened or suppressed saliva flow rates in dieters.
LeGoff
D B
DB
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
Leichner
P
P
Spigelman
M N
MN
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001007:Anxiety; D002032:Bulimia / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006815:Hunger / Q000502:physiology; D012472:Salivation; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*