REM and delta sleep in anorexia nervosa and bulimia

Several recent investigations have suggested that neurobiological similarities may exist between patients with eating disorders and those with depression. We performed polysomnograms for two consecutive nights on nine bulimic and six anorectic patients who had no concomitant diagnosis of endogenous depression. The rapid eye movement (REM) latency, REM density, and delta sleep of these subjects on night 2 were compared to those of 10 healthy controls of similar ages. Contrary to reports of shortened REM latency and increased REM density in depressed patients, we did not find significant REM differences between eating disorder patients without endogenous depression and healthy control subjects. Low weight anorectics did appear to have less delta sleep than did controls. These findings do not support the contention that eating disorders are variants of affective disorders.