Anorexia is a serious eating disorder, impacting the lives of men and women across the United States. It can lead to health complications that can impact a person long after they've recovered from anorexia. Now, though, researchers have found that the "love" hormone, oxytocin, could potentially be used as a treatment for anorexia nervosa.
Anorexia nervosa affects millions of people worldwide, including in about 1 about every 150 teenage girls in Britain, according to the Financial Express. It's one of the leading causes of mental health-related deaths, and can be difficult to treat.
Yet there now may be a medication that could help. Researchers have been taking a closer look at the hormone oxytocin, which is naturally released during bonding, such as during sex, childbirth and breastfeeding. Scientists synthesized the hormone and gave it as a nasal spray to anorexic patients. The researchers found that the patients who received the nasal spray focused less on images of food and fat body parts than those who hadn't been given the spray, according to WebMD. This, in particular, showed that oxytocin might just help a person combat anorexia.
"Patients with anorexia have a range of social difficulties which often start in their early teenage years, before the onset of the illness," said Janet Treasure, one of the researchers, in an interview with The Financial Express. "By using oxytocin as a potential treatment for anorexia, we are focusing on some of the underlying problems."
The findings point to a whole new direction for anorexia research. More specifically, it reveals that researchers can potentially focus on the underlying biology of the condition rather than changing psychological factors, according to Time. This could mean a whole new way to treat anorexia and could allow scientists to better help individuals suffering from the condition in the future.
