Sleep-related eating disorder

Sleep-related eating disorder—A kind of sleepwalking where the person gets up (after falling asleep), goes to the kitchen, and proceeds to eat a substantial amount of food, then returns to bed and awakens the next morning with no memory of it. 

Sleep-related eating disorder consists of partial arousal from sleep followed by rapid ingestion of food, commonly with at least partial amnesia for the episode on the next day this disorder has been reported, purportedly for the first time, in association with an atypical neuroleptic drug (132). 

A 52-year-old man with bipolar I disorder and a family history of sleepwalking took olanzapine 10 mg/day and after several days had episodes of sleep-related eating disorder, witnessed by his wife he had no memory of these episodes. After olanzapine withdrawal, the episodes disappeared rapidly. 

Paquet V, Strul J, Servais L, Pelc I, Fossion P. Sleep-related eating disorder induced by olanzapine. J Clin Psychiatry 2002 63(7) 597. 

Hoque R, Chesson AL Jr. Zolpidem-induced sleepwalking, sleep related eating disorder, and sleep-driving fluorine-18-flourodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography analysis, and a literature review of other unexpected clinical effects of zolpi-dem. J Clin Sleep Med 2009 5 471-6. 

Significant medical conditions, including head trauma, metabolic disorders, and neurologic conditions, should be identified. Eating and sleeping patterns are important to identify over time to know if these relate to the present condition and to know if medications affected them. Information about potential drug sensitivities or interactions may be obtained from a medication history that includes antibiotics commonly used, cold preparations, vitamins, health supplements, and present and past psychotropic medications. It is important to find out about previous medication trials what was tried, what worked, what did not work, and why. 

By far the most common health-related complaint made by shiftworkers is disrupted appetite and digestion. It should perhaps come as no surprise that appetite is closely linked to circadian rhythm, thus disrupting one is likely to disrupt the other. Monk and Folkard (1992) stated Expert opinion is virtually unanimous in asserting that, apart from the sleep disorders, ulcers and other forms of gastrointestinal dysfunction are the most likely health consequences of shiftwork (p. 36). Healthy eating education and the availability of healthy meal choices are often recommended as a two pronged approach to dealing with this problem. 

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