Posts Tagged ‘eating disorders’

I wonder whether the folks over at TechCrunch actually read our 2004 article on pro anorexia sites before citing it last week as an example of media hype over internet safety? We appreciate the link love, but do they seriously think we’re partly responsible for the results of a survey which found that US parents consider internet safety to be a more serious health threat to children than school violence, sexually transmitted diseases, abuse and neglect? I mean, seriously?

“Like the alcoholic who loses control after the first drink, these people can’t stop at just one cookie,” according to Harvard researcher Dr. James Hudson, lead author of a new study on binge eating disorder as a familial disorder. The study of 300 overweight people and 900 of their family members revealed that a person is twice as likely to binge eat if he or she has a relative who also has the disorder.

Clinical psychologist and recovering anorectic Lucy Daniels offers a psychoanalytic perspective on the treatment of anorexia nervosa and raises concerns about the pitfalls of ineffective treatment.

New research sheds further light on the role of brain chemistry in anorexia nervosa, indicating that disturbances in the way the brain uses serotonin may persist long after recovery from one type of anorexia.

Increased chemical activity in a part of the brain involved in reward and reinforcement may help shed light on the question of why anorexia sufferers feel driven to lose weight but don’t get any pleasure from it. New research with anorexia sufferers using brain-imaging technology found overactivity of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia. Around 1 percent of women in the US suffer from anorexia, a disorder that can also affect men.