DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY
Center for Weight and Eating Disorders
Albert Stunkard, M.D
Albert Stunkard, M.D. is a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he served for 11 years as the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and founded the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders.
Dr. Stunkard received a B.S. from Yale University in 1943 and an M.D. from Columbia University in 1945. He has investigated both genetic and environmental influences on human obesity, using adoptees, twins, differing social classes, and the Old Order Amish. For the past 18 years, he has been conducting a large-scale prospective longitudinal study of the growth and development of children at high risk of obesity. He also studies deviant eating patterns, having been the first to describe binge eating and having developed treatment for binge eating disorder.
He is currently investigating another eating disorder -- the night eating syndrome. He is the author of nearly 500 publications, mostly in the field of obesity and eating disorders and his research has been supported for 50 years by the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Stunkard has served as Past President of the American Association of Chairmen of Departments of Psychiatry, the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases, the American Psychosomatic Society, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and he serves on the editorial boards of seven journals in the fields of nutrition and behavioral medicine.
Dr. Stunkard can be contacted at the University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, Room 3108, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3309. His fax number is (215) 898-2878 and his e-mail is stunkard@mail.med.upenn.edu.
Recent publications include:
Allison KC, Lundgren JD, O'Reardon JP, Geliebter A, Gluck ME, Vinai P, Mitchell JE, Schenck CH, Howell MJ, Crow SJ, Engel S, Latzer Y, Tzischinsky O, Mahowald MW, Stunkard AJ. Proposed diagnostic criteria for night eating syndrome. Int J Eat Disord. (In press).
Goel, N., Stunkard, A. J., Rogers, N. L., Van Dongen, H. P. A., Allison, K. C., O’Reardon, J. P., Ahima, R. S., Cummings D. E. , Moonseong, H., & Dinges, D. F. Circadian rhythm profiles in women with night eating syndrome. J Biol Rhythms. 2009; 24:85-94.
Lundgren, J. D., Amsterdam, J., Newberg, A., Allison, K. C., Wintering, N., & Stunkard, A. Differences in serotonin transporter binding affinity in patients with major depressive disorder and night eating syndrome. Eat Weight Disord. 2009; 14:45-50.
Stunkard, A. J., Allison, K. C., Geliebter, A., Lundgren, J. D., Gluck, M. E., & O’Reardon, J. P. Development of criteria for a diagnosis: lessons from the night eating syndrome. Compr Psychiatry. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2008.09.013. (In press).
Tholin, S., Lindroos, A. K., Tynelius, P., Akerstedt, T., Stunkard, A., Bulik, C., & Rasmussen, Finn. Prevalence of night eating in obese and non-obese twins. Obesity. 2009; 17:1050-1055.