[No effect of spironolactone on bulimia nervosa symptoms]

Some case reports mention that Spironolactone, a mineral corticoid antagonist and aldosterone antagonist, reduces binging in patients with bulimia nervosa. Therefore, we decided to study these findings by using a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study design. In one study arm, patients with bulimia nervosa were treated with 150 mg Spironolactone per day; in the other arm, patients received a placebo for a total of 8 weeks. The target variables were the number of binges and the bulimia scale of the Eating Disorder Inventory. The study included 93 patients. The results show that the number of binges and the scores on the bulimia scale decreased somewhat, but this occurred in both groups. We were not able to show any significant statistical differences between the Spironolactone group and the placebo group. Additional evaluations, executed with data from the Symptom-Check-List (SCL-90R) and with other scales from the EDI-2 also showed no effect of Spironolactone. Therefore, a treatment with Spironolactone seems to have no effect on bulimia nervosa symptoms.