Behavior, attitude, nutrition and endocrinology in anorexia nervosa: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY IN 24 PATIENTS
- 1 December 1982
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica
- Vol. 66 (6), 429-444
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1982.tb04500.x
Abstract
Anorexia nervosa patients (24) participated in an inpatient broad spectrum behavior therapy program. The changes in body weight, anorectic behaviors and attitudes and endocrine variables (24-h plasma cortisol, dexamethasone suppression test, 24-h plasma luteinizing hormone [LH]) were measured. Specific anorectic behaviors and attitudes showed significant improvement during inpatient treatment, while attitudes of a more general neurotic scope such as the feeling of insufficiency, general distress, (sexual) anxieties and anancasm did not. On admission, 24-h plasma cortisol levels were elevated, episodic secretory spikes occurred at unusual times, and the number was increased, cortisol plasma half-life was increased, and nonsuppression of cortisol secretion following the application of dexamethasone was observed. All these parameters normalized already after 10% wt gain. Twenty-four hour plasma LH pattern showed a close relationship with body weight. The dysfunctions in anorexia nervosa patients in the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal and -gonadal axes apparently have little specificity for this disease and are mainly a consequence of nutritional factors and starvation. The relationship between cortisol and LH-secretion, behavioral and attitudinal variables and weight gain was more complex than previously suggested by others, and a positive relationship between the LH secretory pattern and anorectic symptomatology could not be established.Keywords
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