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Kleine-Levin syndrome: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 07.07.2025
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Kleine-Levin syndrome is manifested by periodic hypersomnia, paroxysmal hunger with hyperphagia, periods of motor restlessness, episodic hyperosmia, and sexual hyperactivity. Usually, during attacks of the disease, the patient sleeps from 18 to 20 hours or more per day. In the waking state, hyperphagia and masturbation are observed. The attacks cease spontaneously; as a rule, the patient does not remember them. In the periods between attacks, no pathological abnormalities are revealed, except for obesity. However, a polygraphic study of night sleep in the interictal period made it possible to detect an increase in the duration of sleep, an increase in the representation of delta sleep. EEG features characteristic of patients with hypothalamic insufficiency are also noted. The syndrome is observed in boys during puberty and usually disappears by the age of 20.
Isolated manifestations of the syndrome in girls and adults have been described.
The pathogenesis of the disease is not completely clear. It is possible that there is a subclinical permanent dysfunction of the hypothalamus and limbic system at the biochemical level, periodically decompensating and causing clinical manifestations.
The causes of Kleine-Levin syndrome are unclear.
Treatment of Kleine-Levin syndrome. There are no adequate methods of therapy. Therapeutic interventions used for cerebral obesity are recommended.
In addition to the syndromes listed, obesity is revealed in the clinical picture of a number of hereditary diseases: Prader-Willi, Lawrence-Moon-Biedl-Bardet, Alstrom-Halgren, Edwards, and Wolf syndromes.