The relationship between alexithymia and Nyght Eating Syndrome
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: NES is characterized by daytime anorexia, sleep difficulties with nocturnal food intake, resulting in obesity (Stunkard et al. Am J of Med. 1955; 19 78-86). Alexithymia refers to the impairment in recognizing and describing feelings. The impairment in distinguishing emotions from body sensations may lead patients to confuse emotional arousal with physical hunger (Sifneos et al. Mod. trends psychosom. med. 1976; 3 430-439). This mechanism could lead to nocturnal food intake. Alexithymia was firstly described in BED and was related to BED severity. OBJECTIVES: To our knowledge no studies have investigated the relationship between alexithymia and NES. The aim of the present study was to assess alexithymia in patients with NES, to improve surgical and nutritional outcomes. METHODS: 110 patients with clinical diagnosis of NES admitted to the Eating Disorder Unit, between 2013 and 2022 underwent psychiatric assessment for bariatric surgery. Clinical assessment consisted of clinical interview and the following psychometric rating scales: 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale; Eating Disorder Inventory 2, specifically the Interoceptive Awareness subscale; Barratt Impulsiveness Scale; Binge Eating Scale. RESULTS: The mean BES score was 24.14(SD 8.23), computed on 107 patients, of which 16 (14.5%) had no or minimal binge eating problems and 91 (82.7%) had moderate-severe binge eating problems. The mean TAS total score was 55.11(12.92), computed on 103 patients. 42 patients had a TAS-20 total score ≤50 and were categorized as non-alexithymic, and 61 had a TAS-20 total score >50 and were categorized as alexithymic. Simple linear regression was used to test if TAS-20 total score significantly predicted EDI-IA in the whole sample (97 patients). The overall regression was statistically significant (R(2)=0.27, F(1,96)=35.46, p< .001) and TAS total score significantly predicted EDI-IA score (β=0.519, p<.001). In the alexithymic group, the regression was statistically significant (R(2)=0.305, F(1,57)=25.07, p< .001) and TAS total score significantly predicted EDI-IA score (β=0.553, p<.001). [Table: see text] Image: Image 2: CONCLUSIONS: In patients with NES, alexithymia significantly predicts poor interoceptive awareness, thus explaining excessive nocturnal food intake. DISCLOSURE OF INTEREST: None Declared
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Direct model labels (unvalidated)
Per-model category and study-design labels from the labeling rounds. They are machine output, unvalidated, and the disagreement between models ships as data. No study design here is MEDLINE-validated yet.
| Model arm | Categories | Study design | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| gemma | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Observational | low |
| gpt | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Observational | low |
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedLabeled directly by 2 models reading the full record.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".