From Fruit Flies To Anorexia

You never know what you'll get to be grateful for. 

That's a refrain I hear all the time from my best friend, who's lived for more than twenty years with non-Hodgkins-lymphoma, and the other day she sent me news to feel grateful for that truly knocked me sideways.  Several years ago she gave a copy of my book Gaining to her next door neighbor, who in turn shared it with her brother, Eric Aamodt, a molecular biologist at Louisiana State University. Reading the book, Eric was intrigued by the description of anorexia nervosa as a condition with genetic and biological roots.  He shared the book with his colleague, Donard Dwyer, and they got to talking about the possible role of insulin-signaling pathways in the development of anorexia. 

What if, they wondered, there were people who became anorexic in response to starvation, just as there are people whose diabetes is triggered by obesity?  What if anorexia were a metabolic deviation and not, primarily, a psychological condition?

Aamodt and Dwyer spearheaded a review of existing research examining starvation responses ranging from yeast and fruit flies to humans.  The resulting   theoretical paper was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry [ Download Molecular Psychiatry ], and has been getting quite a bit of press!

In a nutshell, their findings suggest that anorexia nervosa "is primarily a metabolic disorder caused by defective regulation of the starvation response, which leads to ambivalence towards food, decreased food consumption and characteristic psychopathology…initial bouts of caloric restriction may alter the production of neurotransmitters that regulate appetite and food-seeking behavior and thus, set in motion a vicious cycle."

Or, as the popular press sums up the theory: "It's not stubbornness or a mental disorder that keeps anorexics from eating, it's their own bodies."

Here are a few more links to info about the review:
http://www.americablog.com/2011/05/is-anorexia-biological-disorder.html
 
http://jezebel.com/5806626/is-anorexia-a-disorder-of-the-mind-or-metabolism
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43196217/ns/health-mental_health/

 

Comments

[Wu Ming]

I'm not surprised at all. I've always thought it was mostly biological, not psychological (except in that many "psychological" problems are caused by biology). The epidemiological evidence seemed to go in that direction.

Are you really surprised, Aimee? It's been obvious for at least two generations that much of our personality and even personal quirks are determined by physical things in our bodies. Separated-twin studies show that your genes determine more of your personality than your environment does. Separated biological siblings become adults who are more alike than non-biological siblings raised in the same family. A lot of things like anorexia, bulimia, cutting, alcoholism, etc. seem to be genetic predispositions that can be set off by certain circumstances or environments.

To me the most surprising thing about this is that you would be surprised. I'd like to hear more about why you are.

[Stephanie]

Fascinating, Aimee. This fits with my experience and explains why the re-feeding process is like hell. For me, re-feeding and gaining weight went against everything my body and stomach hungers were telling me. In my mind, I did not think I was fat. In fact, I could see I was thin, but it was the absence of physical hunger that made me hate reaching that healthy weight. I felt better physically doing it my way.

[Ron Saxen]

Aimee,

Makes sense to me. I would not at all be suprised to discover that 'part' of the battle with BED (what I suffered from) also has do with our own bodies.

Good stuff. Thanks.

Ron, Author of The Good Eater