[Bulimia and depression. Their clinical relations]

The multiplicity of actual studies about a possible correlation between eating disorders and affective disorders is found on clinical and family studies, biological, genetic and therapeutic studies. As depressive symptoms are associated to eating disorders in 30 to 88% of the cases according to the authors, family studies suggest the existence of a relationship between eating and affective disorders but no causal link between the two can be proved. Biological tests are difficult to interpret (the dexamethasone suppression test, the TRH stimulation test, a study of platelet MAO activity, of the metabolism of neurotransmitters). The imbrication of metabolic and neuroendocrine disorders being a characteristic of both affective and eating disorders. On the level of therapy, if the results of antidepressants--essentially tricyclics and IMAO--on bulimia are effective on a short-term basis, this is not enough to prove the dysthimic nature of eating disorders. Moreover, their efficiency on the long term (over 6 months) is very controversial. It is the research on genetic and biological index which will allow the precise characterization of the nature of the relationship between eating (bulimia) and affective disorders.