Clinical phenotype and genetic risk factors for bipolar disorder with binge eating: an update.

Clinical phenotype and genetic risk factors for bipolar disorder with binge eating: an update. Expert Rev Neurother. 2019 Jul 04;: Authors: Cuellar-Barboza AB, Winham SJ, Biernacka JM, Frye MA, McElroy SL Abstract INTRODUCTION: The clinical and genetic study of psychiatric conditions has underscored the co-occurrence of complex phenotypes and the need to refine them in entities that are more precise. Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Binge Eating (BE) behavior are common psychiatric conditions that have high heritability and high co-occurrence, such that at least one quarter of BD patients have BE (BD + BE). On the other hand, genetic studies of BD alone and of BE alone suggest complex polygenic risk models, with many genetic risk loci yet to be identified. Areas covered: In this review, the authors describe studies of the epidemiology of BD+BE, its clinical features (cognitive traits, psychiatric comorbidity, and the role of obesity), genomic studies (of BD alone, eating disorders (ED) defined by BE, and BD + BE), and the therapeutic implications of BD + BE. Expert opinion: Subphenotyping of complex psychiatric disorders reduces heterogeneity and increases statistical power and effect size; thus, it enhances our capacity to find missing genetic (and other) risk factors. BD + BE shows a complex and severe clinical picture. Moreover, exploring BD + BE in genetic studies suggests a distinct genetic architecture. Differential therapeutic interventions may be needed...
Source: Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics - Category: Neurology Tags: Expert Rev Neurother Source Type: research