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More Info About CAMH – The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is Canada’s leading addiction and mental health teaching hospital. CAMH succeeds in transforming lives of people affected by mental illness and addiction, by applying the latest scientific advances, through integrated and compassionate clinical health promotion, education and research.
Proceeds from this year’s “Rock for the Brain” music event will assist in enabling and advancing CAMH research in Mood & Anxiety Disorders. Eating disorders fall under this category. | | What many people may know… Eating disorders are serious psychiatric disorders characterized by both disturbed psychological functioning and disordered eating behavior. The disturbance in psychological functioning includes a drive for thinness, distorted body image and difficulty regulating emotions. The disturbed eating behavior can include caloric restriction, and binge eating and purging. There are currently two recognized eating disorders: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The onset of eating disorders usually occurs during adolescence and can continue for many years and become chronic and negatively affect a person’s physical well being and their overall quality of life. | | What people may NOT know… These disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. The cause of eating disorders are multifactorial and include environmental factors such as such physical and/or sexual abuse, a subculture that focuses unduly on thinness, disturbed family dynamics and genetics. While the fashion industry and the media have focused a spotlight on a “female adolescent phenomenon”, these illnesses can affect all age groups, both genders, and very often involve co morbidity - the presence of co-existing other psychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse leading to. People with eating disorders tend to use substances such as nicotine, alcohol or stimulants (e.g., diet pills, caffeine pills, speed, cocaine) to suppress their appetites to lose weight (CAMH, 2002a). Genetics play a very important role in the risk for eating disorders. | | What we need to know…There remains no established treatment for anorexia nervosa despite it having the highest mortality rate of all of psychiatric illnesses. We know that is a highly familial illness but we need to establish the exact genetic factors that predispose an individual to the illness. Considerable research and attention has been focused on the treatment of disordered eating, especially binge eating and concurrent substance use utilizing individual and group psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. However, there is much more research that needs to be done in discovering more effective treatments. Examining what disturbances occur in the brain function related to disordered eating patterns, as well as what changes occur once disturbed eating patterns have taken hold, and how the brain responds to different treatment options are important areas to investigate through new neuroimaging techniques. |
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