This study examines if overweight/obesity are related to higher impulsivity, food addiction and depressive symptoms, and if these variables could be modified after 1 year of a multimodal intervention ...(diet, physical activity, psychosocial support). 342 adults (55-75 years) with overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) from the PREDIMED-Plus Cognition study were randomized to the intervention or to the control group (lifestyle recommendations). Cognitive and psychopathological assessments were performed at baseline and after 1-year follow-up. At baseline, higher impulsivity was linked to higher food addiction and depressive symptoms, but not to body mass index (BMI). Food addiction not only predicted higher BMI and depressive symptoms, but also achieved a mediational role between impulsivity and BMI/depressive symptoms. After 1 year, patients in both groups reported significant decreases in BMI, food addiction and impulsivity. BMI reduction and impulsivity improvements were higher in the intervention group. Higher BMI decrease was achieved in individuals with lower impulsivity. Higher scores in food addiction were also related to greater post-treatment impulsivity. To conclude, overweight/obesity are related to higher impulsivity, food addiction and depressive symptoms in mid/old age individuals with MetS. Our results also highlight the modifiable nature of the studied variables and the interest of promoting multimodal interventions within this population.
Addictions are associated with decision making impairments. The present study explores decision making in Substance use disorder (SUD), Gambling disorder (GD) and Obesity (OB) when assessed by Iowa ...Gambling Task (IGT) and compares them with healthy controls (HC).
For the aims of this study, 591 participants (194 HC, 178 GD, 113 OB, 106 SUD) were assessed according to DSM criteria, completed a sociodemographic interview and conducted the IGT.
SUD, GD and OB present impaired decision making when compared to the HC in the overall task and task learning, however no differences are found for the overall performance in the IGT among the clinical groups. Results also reveal some specific learning across the task patterns within the clinical groups: OB maintains negative scores until the third set where learning starts but with a less extend to HC, SUD presents an early learning followed by a progressive although slow improvement and GD presents more random choices with no learning.
Decision making impairments are present in the studied clinical samples and they display individual differences in the task learning. Results can help understanding the underlying mechanisms of OB and addiction behaviors as well as improve current clinical treatments.
Due to the increasing evidence of shared vulnerabilities between addictive behaviors and excessive food intake, the concept of food addiction in specific clinical populations has become a topic of ...scientific interest. The aim of this study was to validate the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) 2.0 in a Spanish sample. We also sought to explore food addiction and its clinical correlates in eating disorder (ED) and gambling disorder (GD) patients.
The sample included 301 clinical cases (135 ED and 166 GD), diagnosed according to DSM-5 criteria, and 152 healthy controls (HC) recruited from the general population.
Food addiction was more prevalent in patients with ED, than in patients with GD and HC (77.8, 7.8, and 3.3%, respectively). Food addiction severity was associated with higher BMI, psychopathology and specific personality traits, such as higher harm avoidance, and lower self-directedness. The psychometrical properties of the Spanish version of the YFAS 2.0 were excellent with good convergent validity. Moreover, it obtained good accuracy in discriminating between diagnostic subtypes.
Our results provide empirical support for the use of the Spanish YFAS 2.0 as a reliable and valid tool to assess food addiction among several clinical populations (namely ED and GD). The prevalence of food addiction is heterogeneous between disorders. Common risk factors such as high levels of psychopathology and low self-directedness appear to be present in individuals with food addiction.
Anxiety is associated with increased physiological reactivity and also increased "interoceptive" sensitivity to such changes in internal bodily arousal. Joint hypermobility, an expression of a common ...variation in the connective tissue protein collagen, is increasingly recognized as a risk factor to anxiety and related disorders. This study explored the link between anxiety, interoceptive sensitivity and hypermobility in a sub-clinical population using neuroimaging and psychophysiological evaluation.
Thirty-six healthy volunteers undertook interoceptive sensitivity tests, a clinical examination for hypermobility and completed validated questionnaire measures of state anxiety and body awareness tendency. Nineteen participants also performed an emotional processing paradigm during functional neuroimaging.
We confirmed a significant relationship between state anxiety score and joint hypermobility. Interoceptive sensitivity mediated the relationship between state anxiety and hypermobility. Hypermobile, compared to non-hypermobile, participants displayed heightened neural reactivity to sad and angry scenes within brain regions implicated in anxious feeling states, notably insular cortex.
Our findings highlight the dependence of anxiety state on bodily context, and increase our understanding of the mechanisms through which vulnerability to anxiety disorders arises in people bearing a common variant of collagen.
Impulsivity, as a multidimensional construct, has been linked to eating disorders (EDs) and may negatively impact treatment response. The study aimed to identify the dimensions of impulsivity ...predicting poor remission of ED symptoms. A total of 37 ED patients underwent a baseline assessment of impulsive personality traits and inhibitory control, including the Stroop task and the emotional go/no-go task with event-related potentials (ERPs) analysis. The remission of EDs symptomatology was evaluated after 3 months of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and at a 2-year follow-up. Poor remission after CBT was predicted by poor inhibitory control, as measured by the Stroop task. At 2 years, the risk of poor remission was higher in patients with higher novelty seeking, lower inhibitory control in the Stroop and in ERPs indices (N2 amplitudes) during the emotional go/no-go task. The present results highlight inhibitory control negatively impacting both short- and long-term symptomatology remission in ED patients. On the other hand, high novelty seeking and ERPs indices of poor inhibition seem to be more specifically related to long-term remission. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the impulsivity dimension in patients with ED is recommended to tailor treatments and improve their efficacy.
Behavioral addictions have been related with biased emotional reactions to risky choices. However, few studies have analyzed the role of both explicit and implicit emotional expression in gambling ...disorder (GD). This pilot study aims to examine emotion regulation in treatment-seeking patients with GD. The sample included
n
= 35 participants classified into three groups: patients with current GD, patients with GD in remission, and a control group without GD. Implicit emotional expressions were evaluated through a serious videogame (Playmancer) and explicit emotions were measured through self-reports. Patients in the current GD group had, compared to the remission and control groups, lower levels of implicit emotion expression and higher levels of explicit emotion expression. The patients in GD remission group endorsed better emotion regulation capacity in comparison to patients with current GD. We conclude that differences in emotion expression profiles (such as anger and anxiety) should be considered both in the development of screening and diagnostic measures and in the planning of prevention and treatment programs.
Gambling disorder (GD) is a heterogeneous disorder which has clinical manifestations that vary according to variables in each individual. Considering the importance of the application of specific ...therapeutic interventions, it is essential to obtain clinical classifications based on differentiated phenotypes for patients diagnosed with GD.
To identify gambling profiles in a large clinical sample of
= 2,570 patients seeking treatment for GD.
An agglomerative hierarchical clustering method defining a combination of the Schwarz Bayesian Information Criterion and log-likelihood was used, considering a large set of variables including sociodemographic, gambling, psychopathological, and personality measures as indicators.
Three-mutually-exclusive groups were obtained. Cluster 1 (
= 908 participants, 35.5%), labeled as "high emotional distress," included the oldest patients with the longest illness duration, the highest GD severity, and the most severe levels of psychopathology. Cluster 2 (
= 1,555, 60.5%), labeled as "mild emotional distress," included patients with the lowest levels of GD severity and the lowest levels of psychopathology. Cluster 3 (
= 107, 4.2%), labeled as "moderate emotional distress," included the youngest patients with the shortest illness duration, the highest level of education and moderate levels of psychopathology.
In this study, the general psychopathological state obtained the highest importance for clustering.
Psychiatric and psychological aspects in the Ehlers–Danlos syndromes Bulbena, Antonio; Baeza‐Velasco, Carolina; Bulbena‐Cabré, Andrea ...
American journal of medical genetics. Part C, Seminars in medical genetics,
March 2017, 2017-Mar, 2017-03-00, 20170301, Volume:
175, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Gambling disorder (GD) is a psychiatric condition that was recently recategorized as a non-substance-related addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. Criminal ...activity is commonly associated with gambling; however, few empirical studies to date have examined sociodemographic and psychological variables in this population. In this study, we explored criminal behavior history in a sample of consecutively recruited treatment-seeking gamblers (
= 382) and compared subjects with a history of illegal acts (
= 103, 26.9%) to those with no criminal record (
= 279, 73.1%). Impulsivity and personality traits were specifically explored, along with other gambling-related severity factors. We found that gamblers who engaged in illegal activity were more likely to endorse high levels of urgency (i.e., the tendency to act out when experiencing heightened emotional states) and increased lack of premeditation. Gamblers with a history of criminal behavior also had greater GD severity levels and gambling-related debts. Additionally, these gamblers reported lower levels of self-directedness, which is characterized by difficulty in establishing and redirecting behavior toward one's goals. Likewise, gamblers who had conducted criminal acts showed a tendency to engage in greater risk-taking behavior. These results shed new light on this understudied population and provide insights for developing targeted harm-prevention interventions and treatment protocols.
The recent growth of Internet use has led to an increase of potentially problematic behaviors that can be engaged online, such as online gambling or Internet gaming. The aim of this study is to ...better conceptualize Internet gaming disorder (IGD) by comparing it with gambling disorder (GD) patients who only gamble online (online GD). Methods: A total of 288 adult patients (261 online GD and 27 IGD) completed self reported questionnaires for exploring psychopathological symptoms, food addiction (FA), and personality traits. Results: Both clinical groups presented higher psychopathological scores and less functional personality traits when compared with a normative Spanish population. However, when comparing IGD to online GD, some singularities emerged. First, patients with IGD were younger, more likely single and unemployed, and they also presented lower age of disorder onset. In addition, they displayed lower somatization and depressive scores together with lower prevalence of tobacco use but higher FA scores and higher mean body mass index. Finally, they presented lower novelty seeking and persistence traits