How Eating Disorders and Obesity May be Linked

Last month, Psychiatric News, the newspaper of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), featured a story titled, “Obesity and Eating Disorders: Are They Close Relatives?”  The most current research suggests that both conditions are affected by abnormal levels of the same hormones.

There are a few different hormones that regulate every person’s appetite and metabolism.  The hormone that decreases appetite (leptin) is at abnormally high levels in those with obesity and at abnormally low levels in those with anorexia or bulimia.  So why aren’t they decreasing the appetite of those with obesity and increasing the appetite of those with anorexia?  Apparently, both are resistant to leptin’s effects.

Brain chemistry also determines how someone regulates their appetite.  Psychiatric News interviewed anorexia and obesity researchers, who both found that when their study subjects were given snacks, the reward centers of their brains reacted differently from the control subjects.

This research suggests that people with eating disorders and obesity may not have the biological control mechanisms most of us have to keep us healthy.  When we tell someone to eat or not to eat, we are assuming that this person has normal hormonal responses and can easily control their appetite.  This research also forces us to conduct more research on the medical interventions that could help those with eating disorders and obesity regulate appetite and metabolism and make the journey to recovery more possible.

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+ To read the original story from Psychiatric News, visit:  http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/45/20/20.1.full