Eating Disorders: The Track of Addiction
Eating Disorders: The Track of Addiction
Anorexia and bulimia are often considered psychiatrically, but new work suggests that addictive mechanisms also come into play.
Christel, 32, is anorexic for two years (her BMI is 16.7) and is in a state of extreme thinness. AMELIE-Benoist / BSIP
At the opening of the European Symposium (ECED) on eating disorders (TCA), organized by the French Anorexia Bulimia Federation (FFAB), held from Thursday 12 to Saturday 14 September in Paris, a question was asked to participants: "Are the TCA associated with an addictological dimension? Two-thirds said no, by show of hands. And yet. "We can talk about an addictive component in anorexia," says psychiatrist Sébastien Guillaume (University Hospital of Montpellier, Vice President of the FFAB). A track that emerged about fifteen years ago.
Recall that between 600,000 and 850,000 people aged 12 to 35 years are affected by CAW in France, of which 1% to 2% of young women (and a smaller but poorly numbered proportion of young men) suffering from anorexia mental. A disease that can have somatic complications related to undernutrition (stunting, puberty, osteoporosis, fertility problems) or vomiting, and a heavy impact on mental health. Psychiatric pathologies can be added, with a much higher suicide risk than in the general population. "TCA is a severe, chronic, complex disease whose duration is unpredictable and which affects all ages. Known since antiquity, these disorders have become medical pathologies, "explains Corinne Blanchet-Collet (House of Solenn, Cochin, AP-HP).
New hypotheses, particularly addictive ones, complete the understanding of this complex disorder. The diagnosis of anorexia is based on three criteria: the presence of a food restriction - even when the weight is too low - a distorted perception of weight and body, an intense fear of getting fat. This last criterion is somewhat questioned by some researchers. A study (Inserm, Paris Descartes, Sainte-Anne) published in June 2016 in Translational Psychiatry showed that, in young girls who were shown images of thinness, the ventral striatum, a deep brain region essential to the reward circuit , is activated.
The diagnosis is based on three criteria: the presence of a food restriction, a distorted perception of weight and body, an intense fear of getting fat.