Biology, Restriction & Recovery of Eating Disorders

Biological Connections in Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are not to be taken lightly - 20% of anorexia sufferers lose their lives to their eating disorder, its important to remember these are very serious illnesses which pose a great risk.

Many people believe that eating disorders are caused by early relationship problems, low self esteem, the rise of media pressure to be thin, photoshopped images, and fashion magazines - in other words, they are socio-cultural diseases. These factors may have an influence on how we think and act, but latest research shows that they are not the sole cause eating disorders. Events in our lives don’t cause them either - often people will give reasons for their eating disorder such as bullying, stress, or a death in the family and they will blame that for their eating disorder, and I am not minimising in any way the impact of these events in your life, but they aren’t the sole cause of your eating disorder. They may have been the event which triggered the eating disorder into action, or caused you to first go on a diet which then set the eating disorder in motion, but its important to realise that your eating disorder was triggered because your brain is genetically predisposed to having an eating disorder and not because you went through a difficult event. This is why some people go through really challenging experiences and go on to develop eating disorders and others do not. Eating disorders are not a choice.

Eating disorders are neurobiological disorders, which are influenced by developmental and genetic factors. Science writer Carrie A
old has found that that leading researchers believe that up to 80% of your risk for developing anorexia is due to your genes and not what magazines you read or how much control you have. Moreover, genetic researchers have found that if you have an eating disorder, your relatives are 12 times more likely to have experienced or develop an eating disorder than the general population. Genes are a lot to do with our personality traits, and this is why anorexia sufferers share many of the same personality traits. Some of these may be:

a level of anxiety,
a high level of emotional sensitivity
a high level of perfectionism
more likely to have obsessive tendencies

The eating disorder didn’t cause these personality traits, they were there before the eating disorder developed, but when the brain is starved of nutrition, these personality traits become more intense, which is why the eating disorder gets out of control, because that anxiety, perfectionism and emotional sensitivity is used to fuel the eating disorder and keep it going. The brain becomes more rigid, set in routines, and focused on details rather than the bigger picture. So, in a person who already has these personality traits, they may be at risk for developing an eating disorder, and much can be done to prevent this - especially guarding them against any form of dieting and restriction.
Dieting & Restriction Triggers Eating Disorders

Dieting and restriction is a major trigger for any eating disorder. When you restrict your intake, this actually changes the chemicals in the brain, your brain is impaired, you lose the ability to make rational decisions, and then the eating disorder is kept going through continued restriction. It becomes a vicious cycle. Keep in mind that when you lose weight, you do not just lose it from the parts of the body that you wish to lose it from, you also lose weight from your organs, and your brain actually shrinks in size. This is why your brain can’t even make decisions about what to eat and eating disorder sufferers are incredibly indecisive! When your brain is impaired in this way, you lose the ability to regulate stress, regulate cortisol and control depression. Your brain function is also responsible for many of the physical symptoms we see in eating disorders for example inability to regulate body temperature.

Dr Golden of Stanford University School of Medicine found that there are actually structural changes in the brains of CAT scans of patients with eating disorders. The good news is that in Dr Golden’s study the brain reversed back to normal after a year and 11 months of full nutrition. However our brain has grey matter which is made up of our cell bodies, and white matter which includes our nerves and fatty tissue, and studies show that these brain matters are lower in anorexia. Unfortunately, recent studies show that the lower grey matter does persist after recovery. We don’t yet have full understanding of how this affects brain function, or if it can be fully reversible. Another recent study in Toronto involved 66 people who had recovered from an eating disorder, and they had been recovered for 6 years. Yet even after 6 years of recovery, there was still evidence of some structural changes to the brain.
Road to Recovery
This is all really important to understand in your journey to recovery, because the earlier you get help for your eating disorder the less damage is done. And if you are trying to overcome stress and anxiety without dealing with the food part of your eating disorder, it is not going to produce the best results, due to malnutritions effects on your brain! The way to reverse the mental and physical effects of your eating disorder is through full nutrition which will repair your body including your brain function, which is responsible for so many systems to keep your body balanced and healthy emotionally and physically. The way out of your eating disorder, is full nutrition. Your mind is connected to your body in a powerful way - when your body heals then your mind will too.

Here are 4 points to remember and take away with you today:

1. You are not to blame for your eating disorder! it is a biological brain illness.

2. Since your eating disorder is triggered and then kept going through restriction, the only way to recovery is through nutrition, and restoring your weight back to full health. When you are engaging in eating disorder behaviours like starving, binging, purging, over-exercising, your brain is impaired and this is why it’s so hard to think positively and make good choices.

3. You CAN recover! But you need support and help. It is very difficult to go through the recovery process alone. There are many types of therapy out there to support you in your journey to recovery. Get as much support as you can - family, friends, a great therapist you can connect with. You will learn to to separate yourself from your eating disorder, and learn better ways of coping with anxiety and stress.

4. Treat food as your medicine - this is a serious illness, treat it as such, take your medicine regularly.

There is a way through this illness, and the first step is food and support.