CONCLUSIONS: Subthreshold presentations in women with lifetime AN and BN were common, resembled the initial diagnosis, and were associated with modest improvements in psychosocial functioning. For most with lifetime AN and BN, subthreshold presentations seem to represent part of the course of illness and to fit within the original AN or BN diagnosis. PMID: 20047706 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Psychological Medicine)MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

Conclusions: Our results prompt for the recognition of co-morbid EDs among bipolar patients, indicating that BED, along with other EDs, may influence in different ways both clinical characteristics and course of the illness. Further perspective studies are necessary to better define the relationships between different EDs and Bipolar Spectrum disorders. (Source: Journal of Affective Disorders)

Abstract  Anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are complex disorders characterized by disordered eating behavior where the patient’s attitude towards weight and shape, as well as their perception of body shape, are disturbed. Formal genetic studies on twins and families suggested a substantial genetic influence for AN and BN. Candidate gene studies have initially focused on the serotonergic and other central neurotransmitter systems and on genes involved in body weight regulation. Hardly any of the positive findings achieved in these studies were unequivocally confirmed or substantiated in meta-analyses. This might be due to too small sample sizes and thus low power and/or the genes underlying eating disorders have not yet been analyzed. However, some studies th...

There’s a little bit of Tiger in each of us.  The trick is to understand this reality and to do what is necessary to counter it. Have you ever noticed that some people seem very comfortable with their interior world --- the world of their wants / their needs / their desires / their emotions?  They tend to be comfortable looking at them, talking about them, revealing them, and feeling them.  Such individuals really are who they appear to be.  They have a self-awareness that enables them to be in touch with this interior world --- they understand their wants, they recognize their needs, they apprehend their desires, they realize their emotions.  And they are comfortable communicating about them.  In a word, they have the capacity to be intimate --- and not jus...

CONCLUSIONS: In line with clinical eating disorders, non-clinical disordered eating is associated with emotion recognition deficits. However, the nature of these deficits appears to be dependent upon the type of eating psychopathology and the degree of co-morbid alexithymia. PMID: 19962113 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Eating Behaviors)

This study examined whether those who do and do not respond to follow-up assessments differ before or during treatment. Participants (N=268) receiving residential eating disorders treatment were categorized according to those who did ("responders," n=152) and did not ("non-responders," n=116) complete a one-month follow-up assessment. Among participants diagnosed with bulimia nervosa (n=136), responders exhibited significantly higher scores than non-responders at intake on restraint, weight concern, eating concerns, body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and depressive symptoms, and had significantly less improvement in eating concerns during treatment. Among participants with anorexia nervosa (n=132), there were no significant differences between responders and non-responders at intake...MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

Authors: Reba-Harrelson L, Von Holle A, Hamer RM, Torgersen L, Reichborn-Kjennerud T, Bulik CM The impact of eating disorders on maternal feeding practices and children's eating behaviors is not well understood. In the prospective Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), we compared self-reported feeding behavior in mothers with anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED), and no eating disorders (No ED) as well as child eating behaviors and psychological symptoms. The sample comprised 13,006 women and their children from a prospective population-based study of 100,000 births throughout Norway. Eating disorder status was measured 6months prior to pregnancy and during pregnancy. Maternal feeding, child eating, and psychological variables were reported...

Binge eating disorder typically includes periods of excessive overeating. However, a person with a binge eating disorder does not subsequently induce purging (vomiting), as is the case with bulimia. Binge eating can occur on its own, or alongside other disorders or conditions, such as Prader-Willi disorder, or a lesion of the hypothalamus gland. Binge eating can encourage the development of hypertension (high blood pressure), obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Treatment options depend on what is causing the binge eating... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)

Men often bear the biggest brunt of women's negative body image (NBO). If she is suffering, he is too. Sarah Maria, body image expert and author of Love Your Body, Love Your Life works intensively with women and men to overcome their negative body image (NBO). She addresses the core causes and their consequences -- how their past experiences, memories, and repetitious self talk impacts how they deal with themselves and others in daily life, and in intimate settings, where NBO is often is triggered. Sarah Maria worked with one woman, Tawnya* (Name changed) who was thin, fit and exercised compulsively. Tawnya had tremendous anxiety about weight gain. When she got her breast implants the plastic surgeon said, "If I were you're husband I'd be glad you were doing this." But this wasn't the case...

Authors: Lacey JM, Zotter DU Zinc deficiency has been reported in individuals with eating disorders, the risks of which increase during the adolescent and early adult years. A food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) specific for zinc-rich foods was tested for its usefulness in identifying problematic eating behaviour tendencies in college-age women. Ninety-two female students enrolled in a university introductory psychology course volunteered to complete demographic information, the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), and a zinc-specific FFQ (ZnFFQ). Relationships among estimated zinc intakes, food/lifestyle habits, and eating attitude variables were examined. Twenty-five women had estimated intakes below the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for zinc. Individuals in the highest zinc intake g...

Conclusion: Concurrent social phobia and bulimia nervosa may be potential risk factors for SI in patients with non-psychotic MDD. Additionally, patients with more than one past depressive episode may also be at increased risk of SI. (Source: Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica)MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

CONCLUSIONS: One-quarter of a century of specific research in bulimia nervosa shows that the disorder still has an unsatisfactory outcome in many patients. More refined interventions may contribute to more favorable outcomes in the future. (Source: Am J Psychiatry)

CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with eating disorder not otherwise specified, which is sometimes viewed as a "less severe" eating disorder, had elevated mortality risks, similar to those found in anorexia nervosa. This study also demonstrated an increased risk of suicide across eating disorder diagnoses. (Source: Am J Psychiatry)

Authors: Andersen AE, Ryan GL The eating disorders anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa and eating disorders not otherwise specified disproportionately affect women, have profound effects on the overall well-being of women and their children, and can have mortality rates as high as those found with major depression. These disorders may present to obstetrician-gynecologists (ob-gyns) clinically as menstrual dysfunction, low bone density, sexual dysfunction, miscarriage, preterm delivery, or low birth weight in offspring. Ninety percent of eating disorders develop before the age of 25 in otherwise healthy young women, a group that characteristically seeks the majority of their health care from ob-gyns. For all of these reasons, ob-gyns must have a greater awareness of these disorders and...

Authors: Kluck AS Research has linked an appearance-focused family culture (including parental commentary about weight/size) with increased disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction in daughters. Since body image dissatisfaction is also a risk factor for disordered eating, body image dissatisfaction may contribute to the link between family focus on appearance and disordered eating. This correlational study included a sample of 268 college women who completed the Family Influence Scale, Bulimia Test - Revised, Body Shape Questionnaire, and a series of items about their parents' comments about their weight/size. Both family appearance focus and daughters' body image dissatisfaction predicted increased disordered eating in daughters. Additionally, body image dissatisfaction partia...

Three years ago, American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee told reporters she won her battle against bulimia through intuitive eating, a practice similar to mindful eating (). But what exactly do the terms mindful eating and intuitive eating mean, and what do registered dietitians (RDs) and dietetic technicians, registered (DTRs) need to know about them? (Source: Journal of the American Dietetic Association)MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by restricted eating and a relentless pursuit of thinness that tends to present in females during adolescence according to DSM-IV (Table 1). Individuals with AN exhibit an ego-syntonic resistance to eating and a powerful pursuit of weight loss, yet are paradoxically preoccupied with food and eating rituals to the point of obsession. Individuals have a distorted body image and, even when emaciated, tend to see themselves as "fat," express denial of being underweight, and compulsively overexercise. Two types of eating-related behavior are seen in AN. In restricting-type anorexia (AN), individuals lose weight purely by dieting without binge eating or purging. In binge-eating/purging-type anorexia, individuals also restrict their food intake to lose weigh...

Conclusions: Compared with family therapy, CBT guided self-care has the slight advantage of offering a more rapid reduction of bingeing, lower cost, and greater acceptability for adolescents with bulimia or eating disorder not otherwise specified. (Reprinted with permission from American Journal of Psychiatry 2007; 164:591–598) (Source: FOCUS)

Authors: Wisniewski L PMID: 19941174 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy)

is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:Photo of a Loved One Reduces Pain - a Pain Relief Technique That Doesn't Require Drugs http://bit.ly/4rOo0tGreen Tea May Prevent Kidney Stones, nephrolithiasis affects 5% of the world population http://bit.ly/5neqOpEating fruits and vegetables, and drinking tea and red wine may offer some protection from colon cancer http://bit.ly/8i2GKXSeasonal Flu Vaccine May Cut Swine Flu Risk by 45% For Some People http://bit.ly/6CuBlLUsing Cell Phones, Internet to Battle Eating Disorders: Online/text messages may be more helpful than therapy for some -- 0.6% of adults develop anorexia nervosa in their l...