Comparison of 35% carbon dioxide reactivity between panic disorder and eating disorder.

Patients with panic disorder (PD) are hyperreactive to carbon dioxide (CO(2)), but the specificity of this characteristic to PD is controversial. Anxiety and phobic symptomatology are common to both panic and eating disorders (ED). To investigate the specificity of CO(2) hyperreactivity to PD, the responses to inhalation of a 35% CO(2) and 65% oxygen (O(2)) gas mixture were assessed.