Background: There is growing evidence that hypocretin deficiency plays a pivotal role in human narcolepsy. Based on the physiological role of hypocretins in the regulation of food intake, one might suspect that narcoleptic patients should display reduced energy intake and as a consequence a reduced body weight compared to healthy controls.
Methods: The body mass indices (BMIs) of 30 male narcoleptic patients were compared with large community-based reference samples. Because it is unclear whether increased BMI is an acquired consequence of the disease or a genetically determined premorbid feature of narcolepsy, we additionally examined the influence of the HLA-DR2 antigen, strongly associated with narcolepsy, on the BMI in a group of 117 healthy male volunteers.
Results: Narcoleptic patients displayed higher age- and gender-specific BMI percentiles compared to a community-based sample from the German (normal) population. Within the patient sample, BMI distribution did not significantly differ between subjects who had previously received pharmacological treatment compared to drug-naive patients, or between the HLA-DR2 positive and negative healthy subjects.
Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest that an increased BMI in narcolepsy is neither associated with the HLA-DR2 antigen per se nor with medication, but is more likely to be a consequence of disease-associated neuroendocrine abnormalities.