Nausea Drug May Fight Bulimia

A drug used to combat nausea in cancer patients may also help ease the agonies of bulimia, the eating disorder that is characterized by bingeing and vomiting. In The Lancet medical journal, scientists said they discovered that the drug, ondansetron, cuts the number of times bulimia sufferers feel compelled to binge on food, then purge themselves.

The drug, combined with others such as anti-depressants, could help patients return to a normal eating pattern, the researchers say.

Ondansetron was developed originally to fight the side effects of the chemotherapy used to treat cancer victims. The research team at the University of Minnesota Medical School and Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis said they tried the drug on bulimia victims because the nerves affected by their ailment are the same ones that cause the nausea and vomiting commonly associated with chemotherapy.

Bulimia nervosa has been generally viewed as a psychological problem and treated with psychotherapy and anti-depressants such as Prozac. But experts say the Minnesota research suggests the condition also can be caused by physiological factors and thus treatable with "appropriate" drugs.

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