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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : March 13, 2014 3:19 PM IST
Oxytocin, or 'love hormone', can not only enhance pleasure as you mate but can also help treat teenage girls suffering from anorexia nervosa - an eating disorder and mental health condition that can be life-threatening.
A team of British and Korean scientists found that oxytocin alters anorexic patients' tendencies to fixate on images of high-calorie foods and larger body shape.
As well as problems with food, eating and body shape, patients with anorexia often have social difficulties, including anxiety and hypersensitivity to negative emotions.
'Using oxytocin as a potential treatment for anorexia, we are focusing on some of these underlying problems we see in patients,' said professor Janet Treasure from King's College London's institute of psychiatry. (Read: 8 facts about anorexia, the weight loss obsession)
Patients with anorexia have a range of social difficulties which often start in their early teenage years before the onset of the illness. These social problems, which can result in isolation, may be important in understanding both the onset and maintenance of anorexia.
Oxytocin is a hormone released naturally during bonding, including sex, childbirth and breastfeeding.
As a synthesised product, it has been tested as a treatment for many psychiatric disorders, and has been shown to have benefits in lowering social anxiety in people with autism.
After taking oxytocin, patients with anorexia reduced their focus (or 'attentional bias') on images of food and fat body parts.
The effect of oxytocin was particularly strong in patients with anorexia who had greater communication problems.
In a second experiment, after taking a dose of oxytocin, patients with anorexia were less likely to focus on the 'disgust' faces.
They were also less likely to avoid looking at angry faces and became simply vigilant to them.
'Our research shows that oxytocin reduces patients' unconscious tendencies to focus on food, body shape and negative emotions such as disgust,' explained professor Youl-Ri Kim from Inje University in Seoul, South Korea.
The hints at the advent of a novel, ground-breaking treatment option for patients with anorexia, said the study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
What is anorexia?
It's an eating disorder characterised by extreme food restriction and an irrational fear of gaining weight. Because of this, sufferers limit the amount of food they eat. People who suffer from it are called anorexic. Various health issues are connected with this condition including a lack of energy, headaches, drowsiness and dizziness and in the long term conditions like hormonal imbalance, cardiac arrests, reduction of bone and even death (studies show that anorexia has the highest death rate among all psychological disorders).
With inputs from IANS
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