Food intake was measured in 22 obese patients before and after jejunioleostomy for obesity. Most of the weight loss could be accounted for by the observed reduction of caloric intake. Malabsorption was also present as indicated by increased loss of fat in the stools, and decreased absorption of D-xylose and vitamin B12. A dislike for sweet tastes developed after surgery in most patients. Preferences for concentrated solutions of sucrose and glucose were reduced after patients showed a depression of food intake by a 440-calorie preload which had not been detected before surgery. These studies show a decrease in food intake after intestinal bypass surgery and suggest a role for taste or other gastrointestinal factors in regulating food intake.

Close study of twelve superobese women revealed the following principal characteristics. None had a serious psychiatric illness, but most showed moderate personality disturbances with predominant passive-aggressive traits. Depressive features, though common, were not severe. Food typically had been used to allay feelings of emotional deprivation present since early childhood and historically associated with the unstable marriages of these patients' parents. The label "oral character" is not sufficient to provide even a capsule description; stubbornness, defiance, needs for autonomy and wariness of entangling relationships as well as conflicts over exhibitionism also were prominent. These characteristics contribute to the traditional reputation of the obese as "difficult" patients and deserve greater attention to help improve the effectiveness both of standard medical management and of psychotherapy.

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Three groups of women of different socioeconomic extraction, some with and some without chronic pelvic pain, were studied gynecologically and psychiatrically. Regardless of the presence or absence of organic pelvic pathology, pelvic pain patients showed considerable psychopathology clinically and by psychological testing, mainly mixed character disorders with predominant schizoid features. They usually were eager to undergo hysterectomy. Those who received a hysterectomy generally became pain-free, but often they seemingly substituted for it other symptoms (mostly psychological). Pelvic pain patients of different socioeconomic extraction had similar psychological characteristics. A central conclusion is that chronic pelvic pain appears more closely related to the presence of psychiatric disturbance, which is a constant finding, than to the presence of organic pelvic pathology, which is an inconstant finding.