Family therapy helps allay eating disorder -study

CHICAGO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Teens suffering from bulimia, the eating disorder characterized by bouts of gorging and purging, recovered better if they went to therapy with their parents rather than alone, a study said on Monday.

"Parents are in a unique position to help their adolescents, yet treatment typically excludes them from the process," said Dr. Daniel Le Grange of the University of Chicago, who led the study.

"Now we have the evidence that we need to bring them back in," he said in a statement.

Bulimia nervosa afflicts between 1 and 2 percent of U.S. adolescents and can lead to serious health problems and even death, Le Grange and colleagues wrote the report published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

In the trial involving 80 adolescents aged 12 to 19 who had been diagnosed with bulimia nervosa, the half who were randomly assigned to undergo 20 sessions of family-based treatment had better results than those undergoing psychotherapy alone.

In family therapy, parents and sometimes siblings attend the sessions and also monitor eating behavior at home both during and after meals. In psychotherapy, the patient is encouraged to examine the issues behind the disorder.

Six months after the 20 therapy sessions, 30 percent of those in the family therapy had stopped the bingeing behavior, while only 10 percent among those who underwent individual therapy had stopped.