Naturalistic sleep monitoring in women suffering from bulimia nervosa

Objective: Eating disorders may be associated with alterations in sleep. There is evidence that some bulimia nervosa (BN) patients have sleep abnormalities. No studies of their sleep-wake cycles in a natural environment have as yet been reported. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an objective and subjective sleep-wake cycle of BN compared to a healthy age-equated control group (CON). Method: Twenty-nine BN female and eighteen CON subjects were recruited. Sleep-wake patterns were monitored using ambulatory monitoring, mini-actigraphs (Min-Act), for 1 week. Each subject completed self-report questionnaires. Results: The self-reporting questionnaires revealed that BN complained of significantly more sleep disturbances than CON. The ambulatory sleep data revealed significant differences between BN and CON in sleep onset and offset time. Discussion: BN had sleep onset and sleep offset of 1 hr later, which may be connected to binge-purge patterns during the day. It is suggested that future research should focus on BN after remission.