Ardless if malnutrition and starvation continue. If at the beginning of

Ardless if malnutrition and starvation continue. If at the beginning of the illness, patients feel better and less anxious although they are starving, this might be due to complex biological and psychological mechanisms: depletion in tryptophan resulting from a strict diet could relieve anxiety, as suggested by Kaye et al. [38]. In addition, other effects such as satisfaction at having lost weight, positive reinforcement from peers [39], or battling againsthunger as a source of pleasure and control [40], enable them to experience a degree of “well-being”. However, with time, these effects fade and anxiety and depression re-emerge, along with other rituals and obsessions. It is at this stage that patients are usually admitted to hospitalization. This anxio-depressive recrudescence is also explained by several other factors: the regulation and adaptation of the body to all kinds of nutritional deficiencies and hormonal changes, negative comments concerning extreme thinness, exhaustion, chronicity of the order BTZ043 illness and the hospitalization itself. Thus the patient can be caught in a vicious circle that drives him/her to ever-lower BMI, sometimes fatal. In fact, the patient adopts again the first strategy, which is starvation, in an attempt to decrease anxiety and depression, as at the beginning of the illness. Unfortunately, this strategy aggravates the anxiety and depression and the vicious circle described by Garner described [39] becomes established.ConclusionsThe present study is a pioneer investigation of relationships between various nutritional indicators and psychological symptoms in severely malnourished AN patients. In contrast with theories set out in the literature, we did not identify any correlations between severely malnourished status and psychological symptoms. However these results suggest several lines of research to confirm this finding. The use of even better nutritional indicators is needed, for example DXA instead of BIA for body composition analysis, and other than albumin and prealbumin proteins as serum markers [41]. The development of a precise measure of the scale of weight loss could be beneficial. Screening for vitamin and 69056-38-8 chemical information minerals levels could also help to distinguish symptoms resembling depression or anxiety, such as irritability, moodiness, restlessness, etc, associated with malnutrition (vitamin deficiencies, mineral depletion and decreased food intake [42?5]). These could mediate the effect of malnutrition on psychological symptoms more markedly than the variables explored in this study. Clinicians and the treating team of AN, should be aware that there could be confusion in the aetiology of certain malnutrition symptoms that appear as depression and anxiety symptoms. The cornerstone of treating AN is still nutrition rehabilitation which should be initiated immediately [2]. Nutrition rehabilitation should start first in order to decrease immediately physical complications and psychological well-being. In practice managing co-occurent anxiety or depression symptoms in ED patients will include the specific treatment of ED, that could lower a part of anxiety and depressive symptoms by nutrition rehabilitation, withdrawal from binges and purges, specific psychotherapy (individual or family therapy) and work on the social impact of the illness.Anorexia NervosaFuture studies with a longitudinal design and a follow up on the evolution during treatment are needed to explore variations in nutritional status in relat.Ardless if malnutrition and starvation continue. If at the beginning of the illness, patients feel better and less anxious although they are starving, this might be due to complex biological and psychological mechanisms: depletion in tryptophan resulting from a strict diet could relieve anxiety, as suggested by Kaye et al. [38]. In addition, other effects such as satisfaction at having lost weight, positive reinforcement from peers [39], or battling againsthunger as a source of pleasure and control [40], enable them to experience a degree of “well-being”. However, with time, these effects fade and anxiety and depression re-emerge, along with other rituals and obsessions. It is at this stage that patients are usually admitted to hospitalization. This anxio-depressive recrudescence is also explained by several other factors: the regulation and adaptation of the body to all kinds of nutritional deficiencies and hormonal changes, negative comments concerning extreme thinness, exhaustion, chronicity of the illness and the hospitalization itself. Thus the patient can be caught in a vicious circle that drives him/her to ever-lower BMI, sometimes fatal. In fact, the patient adopts again the first strategy, which is starvation, in an attempt to decrease anxiety and depression, as at the beginning of the illness. Unfortunately, this strategy aggravates the anxiety and depression and the vicious circle described by Garner described [39] becomes established.ConclusionsThe present study is a pioneer investigation of relationships between various nutritional indicators and psychological symptoms in severely malnourished AN patients. In contrast with theories set out in the literature, we did not identify any correlations between severely malnourished status and psychological symptoms. However these results suggest several lines of research to confirm this finding. The use of even better nutritional indicators is needed, for example DXA instead of BIA for body composition analysis, and other than albumin and prealbumin proteins as serum markers [41]. The development of a precise measure of the scale of weight loss could be beneficial. Screening for vitamin and minerals levels could also help to distinguish symptoms resembling depression or anxiety, such as irritability, moodiness, restlessness, etc, associated with malnutrition (vitamin deficiencies, mineral depletion and decreased food intake [42?5]). These could mediate the effect of malnutrition on psychological symptoms more markedly than the variables explored in this study. Clinicians and the treating team of AN, should be aware that there could be confusion in the aetiology of certain malnutrition symptoms that appear as depression and anxiety symptoms. The cornerstone of treating AN is still nutrition rehabilitation which should be initiated immediately [2]. Nutrition rehabilitation should start first in order to decrease immediately physical complications and psychological well-being. In practice managing co-occurent anxiety or depression symptoms in ED patients will include the specific treatment of ED, that could lower a part of anxiety and depressive symptoms by nutrition rehabilitation, withdrawal from binges and purges, specific psychotherapy (individual or family therapy) and work on the social impact of the illness.Anorexia NervosaFuture studies with a longitudinal design and a follow up on the evolution during treatment are needed to explore variations in nutritional status in relat.