Epidemiology Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts 02178.
Forty-two women who met the new narrower criteria for bulimia nervosa of DSM-III-R completed a placebo-controlled double-blind study with trazodone. The drug proved significantly superior to placebo, both in measures of frequency of binge eating and vomiting and in the patients' subjective assessments of improvement. Trazodone produced few adverse effects.