What is Anorexia?

Anorexia is a feeding upheaval, characterized by little food ingestion or severe restriction caused caused by an intense fear to be fat, accompanied of the desire  of being thinner. Usually patients have distortion of their own corporal image, which leads them to maintain a weight below the accepted limits, being able to arrive at a serious under nourishment.

What Is Anorexia Nervosa?

Anorexia and anorexia nervosa are somewhat different.
“Anorexia nervosa” is often described as a serious psychological disorder characterized by an extreme aversion to food. It is defined in American diagnostic criteria as a refusal to maintain minimal body weight within 15% of an individual’s normal weight, along with fear of gaining weight and disturbance in the way the person sees their body image.
It is often a chronic condition and it is a life-threatening eating disorder. It is important to differentiate anorexia nervosa from general medical conditions that may affect appetite; including major depression; social phobias (eating around people); and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Eating disorders affect people of all ages.

Eating disorders are often thought of as a problem of troubled teens or young women in college. But that’s far from the only truth. Adults — even older adults — also can have eating disorders, whether it’s anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder or a nonspecific
eating disorder.
It’s true that eating disorders usually affect younger women, peaking in the late teens or early 20s. However, eating disorders also affect woman in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.
These women typically fall into three categories:

  • Women who have secretly struggled with an eating disorder their entire life without seeking treatment
  • Women who were treated for eating disorders when they were younger and develop a recurrence when they get older
  • Women who first develop an eating disorder as an adult

Most women who receive appropriate treatment get well enough that they no longer meet the criteria for being diagnosed with an eating disorder. However, many women will continue to have some degree of lingering signs or symptoms of an eating disorder that can flare up under stress. These may include bingeing and purging, such as vomiting, or renewed efforts to restrict eating with significant weight loss.
Ironically, as concerns grow over the rise in obesity, some people are intent on becoming too thin, sometimes to the point of self-starvation. People with the eating disorder anorexia are obsessed with food and being thin. They don’t maintain a body weight that’s normal for their age and height. Indeed, they may be skeletally thin but still think they’re fat. To prevent weight gain or to continue losing weight, people with anorexia may starve themselves or exercise excessively.
Anorexia may seem very common because of media attention and television specials, but in truth, its prevalence is hard to narrow down. Some estimates say only about 1 percent of American girls and women have anorexia. Others suggest that up to 10 percent of adolescent girls have anorexia. It may seem particularly common among teens because that’s often when anorexia begins, and many teens do experiment with diets. Boys and men also can develop anorexia, but they do so far less often than women.
Anorexia, technically called anorexia nervosa, can be chronic and difficult to overcome. But with treatment, people with anorexia can gain a healthier sense of their self, return to healthier eating habits and reverse some of the disease’s serious complications
“People who fully recover from the illness…tend to have a very, very low risk of relapsing.”
Most of the cases of adult anorexia nervosa involve people who have had the illness since their adolescence who have continuing symptoms or symptoms that wax and wane over time
Is it likely that a woman who had anorexia in herteens will relapse during a hard time in her adulthood? People who fully recover from the illness, meaning that they have no residual symptoms, and who maintain that recovery for a period of time, tend to have a very, very low risk of relapsing. If they have mild symptoms that persist over time and then exposed to a major stressful life event, there is a risk of having a relapse, although it is impossible to determine what that risk is, which means you can’t quantify it in any way. I think it is fair to say that if you reach a period of recovery, where symptoms are no longer present, and that period of recovery is sustained, then the risk of relapse is significantly lowered, even in the face of stressful life events

Alcohol and Anorexia?

Alcohol use problems may produce anorexia at three time points:

  • During intoxication. Thought and coordination are disorganized when the person is inebriated, making eating a low priority.
  • During recovery from intoxication. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may all contribute to anorexia. If the older person in recovery starts drinking again, weeks may pass without the person having significant food intake. However, the person with the alcohol use problem may binge, and return to normal eating patterns between episodes. During a drinking episode, carbohydrates are the primary nutrient displaced by alcohol.
  • Secondary to organ damage. Damage to organs from long-term alcohol abuse may also cause anorexia. For example, anorexia is a clinical finding of hepatic failure.

Chapman et al. note “Alcohol affects absorption, storage, and excretion of most nutrients, so secondary vitamin and mineral deficiencies can also occur. Zinc deficiency may develop due to poor intake, reduced absorption, and increased urinary excretion. Iron absorption and iron stores may increase with heavy drinking, leading to iron overload. Conversely, iron deficiency may develop secondary to bleeding varices and ulcers. Thiamine deficiency may occur due to poor intake, inability to metabolize to the active form, increased excretion, or increased need with large carbohydrate loads. Depending on the extent of organ damage from alcohol, virtually every nutrient will be adversely affected.”

Conclusions

- The disorder them of the feeding are only a symptom that conceals a deeper upheaval of personality, where the sociocultural factors are decisive.

  • Between the most important characteristics they emphasize the obsessive impulse to be thin, distorted image of his body, poor man self-esteem, incapacity to identify hunger sensations, perception of fatter areas of his body, presence of obsessive rituals and an extreme and superstitious thought.
  • It affects mainly to the adolescent women between 11 and 18 years.
  • The treatment must be founded on a suitable diagnosis and it is due to consider that exists cases where the hospitalization is absolutely necessary.
  • Independent of the selected treatment the communication between professionals with the purpose of carrying out a true interdisciplinary collaboration for the consistency of the handling of the case is important, providing to him to the patient physical, psychological and social a balance suitable, and where the therapeutic approach is flexible according to the variations of the state of the patient.

Sources: Mayo Clinic, Medicine Net, Aging in Canada

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