Medical News

Remuda Programs for Eating Disorders, http://www.remudaranch.com, the nation's leading eating disorder treatment center, reports eating disorders can develop or worsen upon returning to school. A majority of eating disorders begin at ages 14 and 18, when young women enter either high school or college. [click link for full article]

Moving away from home and adapting to a new social environment are just two of the many challenges that new students face as they enter university. An innovative new study conducted at the University of Alberta has found that these challenges can actually have a negative effect on a student's health. [click link for full article]

Adolescents have grown taller and put on weight over the last thirty years, but the problem of underweight teens may be worse, a study in the online open access journal BMC Public Health suggests. An analysis of the height, weight, and body-mass index of teenagers during 1966-1969 and 1995-1997 in Norway demonstrates a shift towards taller and heavier teenagers, but also hints that there are more underweight adolescents. [click link for full article]

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) released its Position Stand on "The Female Athlete Triad," recognizing the relationships among energy availability, menstrual function and bone mineral density, which may manifest into eating disorders, amenorrhea (absence of menstrual period), and osteoporosis in at-risk female athletes. [click link for full article]

A new study of teenagers has found that the same risk factors are associated with both being overweight and with disordered eating behaviors like binge eating and using diet pills. Moreover, food related problems are extraordinarily common among urban teens affecting 44 percent of adolescent girls and 29 percent of boys. The study also suggests that teasing teens about weight is no joke, especially when the teasing comes from family. [click link for full article]

Although anorexia nervosa is categorized as an eating disorder, it is not known whether there are alterations of the portions of the brain that regulates appetite. [click link for full article]

Nearly 10 million women and one million men suffer from diagnosed eating disorders; many more have symptoms that have yet to be clinically identified and treated. [click link for full article]

Researchers report that fasting or eating half as much as usual every other day may shrink your fat cells and boost mechanisms that break down fats. Consuming less calories and increasing physical activity is usually what people do to lose weight and stay healthy. But some people prefer to adopt a diet which consists of eating as much as they want one day while fasting the next. [click link for full article]

BAPEN is delighted to announce the support of the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Government, the Chief Nursing Officer in Northern Ireland and the Department of Health in England for the UK's first Nutrition Screening Week (NSW) to establish the extent of malnutrition on admission to hospital and care homes across all four nations. [click link for full article]

Pregnancy may open a window of vulnerability for developing binge eating disorder, especially for women from lower socio economic situations, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers and colleagues in Norway. In a long-term study of 100,000 pregnant Norwegian women, the researchers saw an unexpected increase in new incidences of binge eating disorder that began during pregnancy. [click link for full article]

A University of Iowa professor is making a case for a new eating disorder she calls purging disorder. The disorder is similar to bulimia nervosa in that both syndromes involve eating, then trying to compensate for the calories. What sets the disorders apart is the amount of food consumed and the way people compensate for what they eat. Women with purging disorder eat normal or even small amounts of food and then purge, often by vomiting. [click link for full article]

Patients suffering from bulimia, aged 12-19, respond better to family-based treatments than supportive psychotherapy, according to an article in Archives of General Psychiatry (JAMA/Archives). Supportive psychotherapy explores the underlying issues of the disorder. [click link for full article]

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), is pleased to announce that Rachel Seidel, M.D., has won the national AACAP 2007 Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Award for her paper, "Anna, Leaving for College: Interruption, Separation and Termination in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of an Adolescent Girl With Bulimia." Members of the AACAP Psychotherapy Committee selected Dr. Seidel after a competitive process. Dr. [click link for full article]

Dietitians of Canada (DC) is excited about the launch of the EatRight Ontario service by the government of Ontario that now provides residents of Ontario with better access to Registered Dietitians and trusted nutrition advice. By calling 1-877-510-5102 in Ontario or visiting http://www.ontario.ca/eatright you can connect with a Registered Dietitian (RD) and get answers to your nutrition and healthy eating questions. [click link for full article]

Remuda Programs for Eating Disorders, the nation's leading eating disorder treatment center, reports a dangerous new trend of manipulating insulin doses in order to lose weight is emerging among young women with diabetes and eating disorders. A recent study reports the death rate of a person who has both diabetes and an eating disorder, and who hasn't received treatment, is nearly 35 percent. [click link for full article]

In the U.S., Mexico and around the world, approximately three women out of every 100 will develop anorexia or bulimia, and some studies indicate that as many as 20 percent of anorexics may die of the disease. With these kinds of statistics as a spur, the Swedish Trade Council is "exporting" a highly successful treatment for eating disorders developed by scientists at the famed Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and currently available to people in the U.S. [click link for full article]

Eating disorders patients are likely to abuse Alli, the first over-the-counter diet drug approved by the FDA, predicts a Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute psychologist who specializes in treating these patients. "Because it's been approved by the FDA, people think it's safe. But if patients are already at a healthy weight and are using Alli as part of their eating disorder, then it is not safe. [click link for full article]

Baroness Denise Kingsmill, Chairman of the Independent Model Health Inquiry, established by the British Fashion Council to look into the health of models on the catwalks at London Fashion Week, recently published the Inquiry's Interim Report containing outline recommendations to ensure the industry behaves responsibly and in the best interests of those models who help make a success of London Fashion Week. [click link for full article]

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) has encouraged the American Medical Association (AMA) to call for the development of better standards of care for children and adolescents with eating disorders and to emphasize the need for eating disorder prevention programs. [click link for full article]

Models seem to be suffering the brunt of the fashion industry's obsession with size zero, according to a new study carried out by the Model Health Inquiry. The study indicates that as many as 40% of models may currently be suffering from some kind of eating disorder. The report suggests that there is a growing number of women with hidden eating disorders. If this is the case, perhaps current known cases may be just the tip of the iceberg. Dr. [click link for full article]