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News Articles About Eating Disorders

Bone loss found in most anorexics
More than 90 percent of young women suffering from the eating disorder anorexia nervosa also experience significant bone loss, according to a new study. And the report published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine also found that taking estrogen supplements did not appear to reduce the risk of bone loss. "While it is well known that bone loss is a significant problem for women with anorexia, this study shows how extensive the problem is," said Dr. Steven Grinspoon, a neuroendocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

St. Petersburg Times
And the report published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine also found that taking estrogen supplements did not appear to reduce the risk of bone loss.

"While it is well known that bone loss is a significant problem for women with anorexia, this study shows how extensive the problem is," said Dr. Steven Grinspoon, a neuroendocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"It also shows that regaining and maintaining a healthy weight is key to preventing or reducing bone loss."

Anorexics lose weight by not eating. They unrealistically fear gaining weight and they have a distorted image of their body. Normal levels of hormones such as estrogen are disrupted, so they lose menstrual periods and bone mass.

But it had not been previously known whether the bone loss, which often results in fractures, was due to lack of estrogen or to malnutrition.

The study involved 130 Boston-area women in their 20s with anorexia, most of whom did not have normal menstrual periods. Some -- about 23 percent -- had resumed menstruating after taking supplemental estrogen, and more than half had taken estrogen supplements at some point. None of the women was hospitalized for the illness.

Perfectly Skinny: Study Confirms Perfectionism Is a Strong Trait of Anorexics
Nobody's perfect, but anorexics think they should be, according to a new study that confirms what many eating disorder experts have long suspected.  In the largest study of its kind, an international group of researchers, led by Dr. Katherine Halmi of the Eating Disorders Program of New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, examined the relationship between anorexia and perfectionism in 322 women from the United States and Europe

Germ theory of obesity gains weight
An Indian researcher believes a virus may be responsible for obesity -- and he's not as crazy as he sounds.
The possible connection between a pathogen and obesity is just one more example of a startling revisionist hypothesis that is, well, infecting biomedical research: the notion that germs cause, or at least contribute to, an increasingly long list of chronic diseases, many of them exceedingly common.

By Tabitha M. Powledge

Sept. 19, 2000 | Germs that make you fat? An idea that would have seemed nuts not long ago has suddenly become respectable. Although by no means proven, it is no longer in the same outlandish class as the dog that ate homework and other butt-covering fictions.

The possible connection between a pathogen and obesity is just one more example of a startling revisionist hypothesis that is, well, infecting biomedical research: the notion that germs cause, or at least contribute to, an increasingly long list of chronic diseases, many of them exceedingly common. With the help of new molecular techniques, scientists can now easily zero in on disease organisms in human patients and, using statistical methods, link them with particular maladies. Infection is suspected of being at least partly responsible not only for metabolic disorders like diabetes and mental disorders like schizophrenia, but also for the two ailments that will eventually kill most of us: cancer and heart disease.

"In my medical school I was taught that gastric ulcer is due to hurry, worry and curry," says Nikhil Dhurandhar, Ph.D., who was educated in Bombay and is now an assistant professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is talking about the disease that is everybody's favorite example of biomedicine's new infectious paradigm. For decades the medical party line was that ulcers were stress-induced and incurable, the archetypal ailment of the Age of Anxiety -- except that almost all ulcers are caused by a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, and can be easily, permanently and inexpensively cured in less than a month with antibiotics. Researchers first described the relation between H. pylori infection and ulcers in 1983, but their findings were scoffed at for years and incorporated into the medical canon only recently.

Dhurandhar is on a similar mission, but meeting less resistance. Backed by a powerful mentor, obesity researcher Richard Atkinson of the University of Wisconsin, Dhurandhar is slowly amassing evidence that some proportion of obesity -- at this point his work suggests, scarily, that it may be a very large proportion -- is the consequence of infection by a virus.

Most of this research has been done in animals, but some small human studies, so far mostly unpublished, back it up. The latest published contribution appeared last month in the International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders. The paper reported on experiments in which Dhurandhar and his colleagues inoculated chickens and mice with a human virus they suspect of promoting fat gain. It did: The infected animals gained two-thirds more fat than uninfected control animals.

The virus, designated Ad-36, is one of 50 adenoviruses known to infect people. In an electron microscope, adenoviruses look a bit like the World War II mines used to block shipping channels -- spherical and studded with spikes that help them attach to host cells. Despite that ominous configuration, most appear to be benign. A few cause respiratory infections, pinkeye and diarrhea.

As for Ad-36, it doesn't seem to give diarrhea or colds to Dhurandhar's birds and rodents, at least. "They are quiet for a day or so, and then they bounce back," he says.

A handful of viruses are known to make animals fat, which is how Dhurandhar -- who operated obesity treatment centers in India before he came to the U.S. nearly a decade ago -- got interested in them. An unexpected characteristic of these infections is that when the animals get fat the levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in their blood plummet. Increased body fat is generally accompanied by increased cholesterol and triglycerides, which ferry fats around in the blood.

In a study published in 1997, Dhurandhar examined blood from patients in Bombay looking for antibodies against an adenovirus that was epidemic among Indian chickens -- and which killed them after making them fat. He found viral antibodies in 10 of his 52 human patients, evidence that they had been exposed to the virus at some time in their lives. The 10 tended to be fatter than the other patients, and also tended to have lower cholesterol and triglycerides.

Dhurandhar says he has strengthened the case in a U.S. study. In findings presented at conferences and in a paper Dhurandhar says has been submitted for publication, Ad-36 antibodies turned up in 100 of 313 obese subjects, but in just four of 92 lean controls. In short, nearly one in three fat Americans in Dhurandhar's study showed evidence of prior infection with the virus, compared with only one in 20 slim ones. Moreover, the infected subjects also had lower-than-usual cholesterol levels.

Children follow parents' lead in weight-loss programs
Various types of interventions have been developed to help overweight or obese children lose weight. In a 'child-centered' approach, children themselves are coached in changing eating and exercise habits. But in 'parent-centered' models, children are not directly instructed about weight-loss methods. Instead, parents are taught to restrict household access to high-calorie foods and raise levels of physical activity, the study authors explain. Studies have already suggested that the parent-centered model works best for children over the long term. But might it also have a 'health dividend' for parents?

Media may feed weight problems of teen-aged girls
Images reflected by the media often can amount to a very unhealthy looking glass for young women. Teen-age body image is greatly influenced by what they see on television and in movies and magazines.

From Correspondent Dr. Steve Salvatore

November 14, 1999
Web posted at: 6:09 p.m. EST (2309 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Images reflected by the media often can amount to a very unhealthy looking glass for young women, according to a new study pblished by the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. It found teen-age body image to be greatly influenced by what they see on television and in movies and magazines.

What they are most likely to see are actresses like Helen Hunt and Calista Flockhart and super models like Kate Moss. All attractive, well dressed and unusually thin.

Marne Greenberg knows all about the desire to be thin. She suffered from Bulimia as a teen-ager.

"I think everyone wants to change their self-image," said Greenberg. "It doesn't matter who you are, you always want to be that someone ... the highest of expectations of someone you can't, or never will, be."

Doctors have found there are many others like Greenberg.

"One of the questions we asked them is how much effort they were making to look like females they see in the media," said Dr. Alison Field of Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"We found that to be a very strong predictor of starting to use vomiting or laxatives to control weight."

Bulimia is an eating disorder in which a person repeatedly binges on food and then uses self-induced vomiting or laxatives to prevent weight gain.

"It begins with teenagers, sometimes during that time, and then it goes on to, of course, the adult population," said Dr. Stanley Hertz of Long Island Jewish Hospital. "It occurs in different studies between 2 and 3 percent of the population."

Greenberg's teen-age years were pretty rough. She was surrounded by friends who were totally consumed with their appearance and she did everything she could to lose weight.

"I was hurting myself and I knew I was hurting myself and there was no way of stopping it," she said.

Doctors believe most young girls face an impossible task if they want to look model-thin.

"The average American model is 5 foot ten, and 107 pounds. The average North American woman is 5 foot four and 143 pounds. So what we show is not what we really are," pointed out Hertz.

"The people that knew me knew I looked emaciated and people that didn't know me, thought I looked great," said Greenberg. "Meanwhile, I had all these stomach problems and everything."

Experts say the best weapon against eating disorders is high self-esteem -- something teenagers desperately need. They also emphasize the importance of young girls evaluating themselves in ways other than through their weight -- and realizing the images they see in the media are often unhealthy and unrealistic.

A multidimensional weight-management program for women.
Real and imagined overweight and obesity, and resulting weight-reduction efforts, are associated with the development of a variety of health problems and eating disorders. For many years, research and practice in the field of weight management have been based largely on a one dimensional, simplistic, weight-loss paradigm.

J Am Diet Assoc. 1999 Oct;99(10):1257-64.
A multidimensional weight-management program for women.

Senekal M, Albertse EC, Momberg DJ, Groenewald CJ, Visser EM.

Department of Consumer Studies, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Matieland.

Real and imagined overweight and obesity, and resulting weight-reduction efforts, are associated with the development of a variety of health problems and eating disorders. For many years, research and practice in the field of weight management have been based largely on a unidimensional, simplistic, weight-loss paradigm. The long-term success rate for persons using this paradigm has been low. This article presents a multidimensional paradigm that focuses on all aspects of the prevention, treatment, and management of weight-related problems. The goal is to stimulate a shift from the unidimensional to a more multidimensional approach in weight-management interventions. The paradigm presents weight management as a continuum on which 5 prominent points are identified: formulation of reasonable weight goals, prevention of unnecessary weight; gain or loss, weight loss when necessary, prevention of relapse, and acceptance of an overweight/obese physique when necessary. The intrapersonal characteristics and skills associated with this continuum, namely, self-esteem, body image, self-efficacy, locus of control, motivation, stress management, problem solving and decision making, and assertiveness, as well as the role of stage of change and environmental influences on weight management, are examined. Issues concerning the different dimensions of the paradigm are discussed as are challenges and applications for researchers and practitioners in the field of weight management.

Anorexia: A case history
"I had anorexia from the age of 14 to about 21. My lowest point was at university where I was only 5 and a half stone. I could hardly walk up stairs. I had to attend outpatients in a metabolic unit for two years. Basically, all they did was weigh me every few weeks.

The British Medical Assocation says media images of thin women encourage teenagers to develop eating disorders. A woman who suffered from anorexia tells BBC News Online that the media played a signficant role in her family problems.

"I had anorexia from the age of 14 to about 21. My lowest point was at university where I was only 5 and a half stone. I could hardly walk up stairs.

I had to attend outpatients in a metabolic unit for two years. Basically, all they did was weigh me every few weeks.

I also went to a psychiatrist once. He was very off-putting and treated me like a child (which is one of the things they say anorexics want to remain).

I gradually got myself better, but am still faddish over food.

I think my main problems were linked to my mother and the fact that I had a very unstable childhood, moving around and having several father figures.

I basically saw the anorexia as a form of depression.

But the fact that it took the form that it did was definitely due in large part to my mother and particularly her eating habits and attitude to her body for which the media must bear some responsibility.

She was continuously on a diet when I was growing up and hated putting on any weight, although she has never been fat.

She has cranky eating habits - for instance having a milkshake for lunch and then not eating all day.

But where did she get those attitudes from? She seemed to go in for every diet under the sun - only eating bananas once week, then eggs, then fibre. It was endless.

The books and media articles kept on coming.

It is too simplistic to solely blame the media, but women's unhealthy attitudes to food are all around us and the media reflects as well as perpetuates them.

Thrusting and ambitious

Nowadays, girls have to be thrusting and ambitious as well as super-attractive, not instead of.

The pressures are immense. And every day the models get thinner and the clothes in the shops get smaller.

They would not look good on anyone over 13 or with any shape to them (except a cleavage).

I can't go into a teenage clothes shop without feeling intensely angry.

I now have a daughter and I am determined to try to stop her having an eating disorder and ensure she eats healthily, rather than getting into the dieting and bingeing cycle.

I will probably fail, but it is such a waste and god knows what the long-term effects are. I was worried one of them would be infertility, but luckily I escaped that."

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