Eating Disorders and how they affect health

Eating disorders that damage health have gained prominence over the past twenty years. Anorexia is characterized by a lack of appetite, almost always accompanied by psychological stresses and significant weight loss. Sufferers often have a distorted body image, where they believe they are vastly overweight and literally begin to starve themselves.

Sufferers of bulimia feel a compulsion to binge-eat and then enforce vomiting in order to stop putting on weight. Traditional treatments of these distressing conditions include the use of anti-depressants, sedatives, psychotropic’s and electroshock.

In the 1980’s, Professor Bryce-Smith reported in Britain’s Lancet that anorexics were almost always zinc-deficient. Studies were showing that zinc-deficient animals lost their desire for food and that the intestinal lining was abnormal as a result. When force-fed a zinc-deficient diet, anorexics can become seriously ill.

With a lack of healthy nutrient absorption invariably being another symptom of this condition, a downward spiral is created. A loss of food creates a deepening zinc deficiency, which in turn suppresses appetite, creating more zinc deficiency.

A case history

Professor Bryce-Smith treated a 13 year old girl who was anorexic, tearful and depressed. After treatment with a basic healthy supplement program, antioxidants and zinc, she had recovered to normal eating patterns within two months. She was also cheerful again, and her body weight had increased by almost 45 per cent.

A paper by Hambridge and Silverman advise that whenever there is a appetite loss in children, zinc deficiency should be suspected. The symptoms of anorexia and zinc deficiency are so similar in a number of respects, they advised that clinical trials should take place to test zinc supplementation in treating this condition.

A lot of evidence was also discovered to suggest that anorexia nervosa is due to a combined deficiency of both zinc and essential fatty acids (omega 3 and omega 6 fats)

What other evidence is there?

Many other studies confirm the connection between zinc deficiency and appetite loss. The condition affects teenaged girls and young women in particular. Eating disorders, when they become severe, can stop menstruation. Zinc supplementation has brought menstruation back to normal.

Cigarette smoking and substance abuses have also been linked to eating disorders. Calcium imbalance as well as zinc is shown to be associated with anorexia nervosa. During a study involving 20 patients, 17 out of 20 increased their body weight by more than 15 per cent in a follow up period of 8-56 months after zinc treatment.

The maximum weight gain was 57 percent after 24 months of zinc therapy. The most rapid weight gain was 24 percent over 3 months. None of the patients involved in the study had weight loss after zinc had been administered, and none of the patients went on to develop bulimia.

The symptoms of Bulimia

A sufferer of bulimia binge-eats and follows this with self induced vomiting. The use of laxatives, diuretics, strict fasting and compulsive exercise is also characteristic of the condition, in order to prevent gaining weight.

Not all bulimics are anorexic. The patient often complains of a lack of control when around food. Other factors to consider with both anorexia and bulimia is glucose intolerance (hypoglycaemia), food allergies and candidiasis. The patient should seek qualified nutritional and emotional counseling whilst undergoing treatment.

What benefits eating disorders?