MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VIVUS, Inc. (Nasdaq: VVUS) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing the company's new drug application (NDA) for its investigational drug, Qnexa®, for the treatment of obesity.   The target date for the FDA to complete its review of the Qnexa NDA is October 28, 2010.  In previously announced pivotal phase 3 trials, patients treated with all three doses of Qnexa achieved significant weight loss compared to placebo, and significant dose-related improvements in a variety of secondary endpoints including reductions in cardiovascular, inflammatory and metabolic risk factors.

"The FDA's acceptance of the Qnexa NDA marks an important milestone in the development of Qnexa as a treatment for patients who are obese or overweight with co-morbidities," stated Leland F. Wilson, chief executive officer for VIVUS.  "We believe that Qnexa, if approved, will play an important role in...]]> Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100228211350/Eating-latest/roadblock-to-recovery-fund-cuts-endanger-treatment-for-eating-disorders-the-buffalo-news-ny.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100228211350/Eating-latest/roadblock-to-recovery-fund-cuts-endanger-treatment-for-eating-disorders-the-buffalo-news-ny.html?Itemid=

Feb. 28--Sara Pilarski remembers the first time she purged food.

She was 15 years old, and had just finished dinner in her mother's kitchen. Suddenly, she felt an overpowering urge to rid herself of everything she had eaten -- immediately. A wave of disgust and pain rose in her.

"All I can remember," said Pilarski, softly, her brown eyes cast down, "is I went in the basement and purged it into a garbage can. I just wanted to get it out of me."

Pilarski, now 21, can call herself many things. A graduate of South Park High School; a daughter, sister and girlfriend; a young woman who dreams of becoming a nurse one day.

But the South Buffalo woman also calls herself this: an eating disorder sufferer.

Now, her struggle has grown unexpectedly harder.

Pilarski, along with thousands of others in Western New York, is finding the battle against bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating much...]]> Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:08:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100226210987/Eating-latest/eating-disorders-seen-rising-among-women-bc-japan-health-eating-disordersys.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100226210987/Eating-latest/eating-disorders-seen-rising-among-women-bc-japan-health-eating-disordersys.html?Itemid=

TOKYO _ Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, which are generally perceived as ones young women suffer from, have also been found among many middle-aged and older women in Japan.

Self-help groups and other organizations supporting sufferers of eating disorders are calling on older patients not to hesitate to ask for outside help.

A 50-year-old woman from Fujisawa became anorexic three years ago.

Before that, she used to weigh about 121 pounds, not overweight for a woman who is 5 feet 3 inches tall.

"My ideal weight is 45 kilograms (99 pounds). No matter how hard I tried, I managed to lose only 5 kilograms, or down to 50 kilograms (110 pounds), so I felt obese and ugly, and I had no self-confidence," she recalled.

Three years ago, her husband was hospitalized, leaving her to suffer mental fatigue and to lose her appetite. She lost 22 pounds in three months.

From that time on,...]]> Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:16:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100226210986/Eating-latest/shaking-up-alzheimers-patients-bc-health-alzheimers-shakesl.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100226210986/Eating-latest/shaking-up-alzheimers-patients-bc-health-alzheimers-shakesl.html?Itemid=

Medical experts believe that a lot of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, including memory loss, result from damage to synapses that carry vital messages between brain cells.

Now a group of researchers at St. Louis University is taking a closer look at a nutritional shake that seems to improve verbal memory in Alzheimer's patients.

The researchers are seeking people who are in early stages of the disease to participate in the 24-week study. A total of 500 volunteers will be recruited at 40 study sites nationwide.

Participants must be at least 50 years old, have mild to moderate Alzheimer's and be on a stable dose of a drug approved by the FDA to treat Alzheimer's.

A caregiver must accompany participants to six visits and be available by phone to answer questions about the patient's behavior and ability to function.

Half of the participants will be given the nutritional shake to drink with breakfast. The...]]> Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:11:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100225210652/Eating-latest/new-approaches-to-teen-therapy-bring-results.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100225210652/Eating-latest/new-approaches-to-teen-therapy-bring-results.html?Itemid=

When help is needed for a troubled teen and things feel like they are falling apart at home, psychotherapeutic interventions provide families with a growing array of options.

(PRWEB) February 25, 2010 -- When help is needed for a troubled teen and things feel like they are falling apart at home, psychotherapeutic interventions provide families with a growing array of options.

There was a time when parents turned to their own elders, their religious community, and extended family for assistance, but today’s parents are not as closely tied to support systems, and the help they seek is often within the professional community.

Only about half of American children and teenagers with certain mental disorders receive professional services and only about a third of youth with an anxiety disorder receive treatment, according to the NHANES survey (2001-04) published in Pediatrics and funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).*

Perhaps one...]]> Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:01:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100224210713/Eating-latest/recent-studies-from-harvard-university-add-new-data-to-eating-disorders-therapy.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100224210713/Eating-latest/recent-studies-from-harvard-university-add-new-data-to-eating-disorders-therapy.html?Itemid=

New investigation results, 'Hormone predictors of abnormal bone microarchitecture in women with anorexia nervosa,' are detailed in a study published in Bone. According to recent research published in the journal Bone, "Osteopenia is a complication of anorexia nervosa (AN) associated with a two-to three-fold increase in fractures. Nutritional deficits and hormonal abnormalities are thought to mediate AN-induced bone loss."

"Alterations in bone microarchitecture may explain fracture risk independent of bone mineral density (BMD). Advances in CT imaging now allow for noninvasive evaluation of trabecular microstructure at peripheral sites in vivo. Few data are available regarding bone microarchitecture in AN. We therefore performed a cross-sectional study of 23 women (12 with AN and 11 healthy controls) to determine hormonal predictors of trabecular bone microarchitecture. Outcome measures included bone microarchitectural parameters at the ultradistal radius by flat-panel volume CT (fpVCT); BMD at the PA and lateral spine, total hip, femoral neck, and...]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100224210714/Eating-latest/findings-from-university-of-ulm-department-of-psychiatry-advance-knowledge-in-eating-disorders-in-women.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100224210714/Eating-latest/findings-from-university-of-ulm-department-of-psychiatry-advance-knowledge-in-eating-disorders-in-women.html?Itemid=

New investigation results, 'A neural signature of anorexia nervosa in the ventral striatal reward system,' are detailed in a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. According to recent research from Ulm, Germany, "Animal studies assessing mechanisms of self-starvation under conditions of stress and diet suggest a pivotal role for the mesolimbic reward system in the maintenance of core symptoms in anorexia nervosa, which is corroborated by initial empirical evidence in human studies. The authors examined activity in the ventral striatal system in response to disease-specific stimuli in women with acute anorexia nervosa."

"Participants were 14 women with acute anorexia nervosa and 14 matched healthy comparison women who underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during evaluation of visual stimuli depicting a female body with underweight, normal weight, and overweight canonical whole-body features according to standardized body mass indices. Participants were required to process each stimulus in a self-referring way....]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100224210740/Eating-latest/studies-from-washington-state-university-college-of-veterinary-medicine-in-the-area-of-influenza-therapy-published.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100224210740/Eating-latest/studies-from-washington-state-university-college-of-veterinary-medicine-in-the-area-of-influenza-therapy-published.html?Itemid=

Researchers detail in 'Attenuation of the influenza virus sickness behavior in mice deficient in Toll-like receptor 3,' new data in influenza. "Certain sickness behaviors occur consistently in influenza-infected humans and mice. These include body temperature changes, somnolence, and anorexia," scientists in the United States report (see also Influenza Therapy ).

"Several cytokines serve as mediators of the influenza acute phase response (APR), including these sickness behaviors, and one likely inducer of these cytokines is dsRNA produced during viral replication. TLR3 is known to be one of the host cellular components capable of recognizing dsRNA and activating cytokine synthesis. To determine the role of TLR3-detected viral dsRNA in the causation of viral symptoms, TLR3-deficient mice (TLR3 knockouts, or KOs) were infected with a marginally-lethal dose of mouse-adapted X-31 influenza virus. TLR3 KOs and their wild-type (WT) controls were monitored for baseline body temperature, locomotor activity, and sleep profiles prior to infection. Both...]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100222208328/Eating-latest/psychiatrists-call-for-ban-on-glamorising-of-eating-disorders.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100222208328/Eating-latest/psychiatrists-call-for-ban-on-glamorising-of-eating-disorders.html?Itemid=

London, February 23 (ANI): Psychiatrists are urging a ban be put on the "damaging portrayal" of eating disorders in advertisements and various other publications.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists' (RCPsych) Eating Disorders Section is raising its voice against the promotion of unhealthy and airbrushed images of underweight models in magazines and on television.

Experts fear the "harmful" effects these images can have in "glamorising" eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

"Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses. Although biological and genetic factors play an important role in the development of these disorders, psychological and social factors are also significant," The Telegraph quoted Dr Adrienne Key, consultant psychiatrist at the RCPsych, as saying.

"There is a growing body of research that shows the media plays a part in the development of eating disorder symptoms - particularly in adolescents and young people," Dr Key added.

Susan Ringwood, chief executive of beat, the eating disorders charity, also...]]> Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:01:00 +0000 http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100222207564/Eating-latest/remuda-ranch-programs-for-eating-and-anxiety-disorders-sponsors-a-special-edition-of-the-award-winning-documentary-america-the-beautiful.html?Itemid= http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100222207564/Eating-latest/remuda-ranch-programs-for-eating-and-anxiety-disorders-sponsors-a-special-edition-of-the-award-winning-documentary-america-the-beautiful.html?Itemid=