Starving to fit into those genes

Scimex: A genetic mutation associated with an increased risk of developing eating disorders in humans has now been found to cause several behavioral abnormalities in mice that are similar to those seen in people with anorexia nervosa. The findings, published online April 9 inCell Reports, may point to novel treatments to reverse behavioral problems associated with disordered eating.

Anorexia nervosa: the facts

Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative

•  Anorexia nervosa is not a choice. 
• Anorexia nervosa is not about physical appearances and wanting to achieve some societal thin ideal. 
• Anorexia nervosa is a serious biologically based mental illness that robs millions of women and men of their lives every year. 
• Anorexia afflicts approximately 1% of the population. 
• Women are between five to nine times more likely to develop anorexia nervosa than men. 
• Although adolescent and young adult women are most commonly afflicted, it can strike at any time. Anorexia does not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class. 
• Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness—about 5 per cent per decade. 
• Individuals with anorexia nervosa are over 50 times more likely to commit suicide than their peers. 
• Anorexia nervosa is heritable; genes play a role. 
• We have identified no medications that are effective in the treatment of anorexic nervosa. 
• Family based treatment is the treatment of choice for youth with anorexia nervosa. 
• We know less about best practices for the treatment of anorexia nervosa in adults. 
• Of those who survive, about 25% of individuals with anorexia nervosa make a full recovery, about 50% experience remission with some lingering symptoms, and 25% develop a chronic unremitting course. 
• Eating disorders affect nearly 4 times as many children and adolescents as diabetes and 11 times as many children as cancer.

Anorexia Nervosa: New research underlines the importance of getting help before chronicity sets in

Douglas Institute. Canada: A study led by Howard Steiger, PhD, head of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute Eating Disorders Program (EDP), in Montreal, in collaboration with Linda Booij, a researcher with Sainte-Justine Hospital and an assistant professor at Queen's University, is the first to observe effects suggesting that the longer one suffers from active anorexia nervosa (AN), the more likely they are to show disorder-relevant alterations in DNA methylation.

Anorexia nervosa

Author : Dr Sara M. Buckelew, Assistant Clinical Professor and Director, Eating Disorder Program University of California, San Francisco . 2008-06-10

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder that typically affects adolescent girls, with an average prevalence of 0.3% in young women. [1] The word “anorexia” means loss of appetite, a symptom in other diseases.  Most people with the diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa are referred to as having “anorexia,” which is technically not correct. In many ways, people with AN do not lose their appetite, but rather are preoccupied with food.