What goes through the head of a person with anorexia?

Reduce anorexia to the simple desire or whim of be thin is to look only at the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it burns the mental illness with the highest mortality rate (above schizophrenia or bipolar disorder). In other words: would be to confuse the disease with the symptom.

That is why, before looking at the way a patient acts, it would be fair to stop and try to discover what drives him to have a so destructive behavior. Namely, What's going on in your head and what's going on in your head? Two factors that combined, form the perfect breeding ground for incubate an eating disorder they emerge victorious from 5 out of 10 patients. Neither more nor less than half, a figure that leaves the cure rate quite far from what would be desirable.

What happens in the brain of a person with anorexia?

Framing anorexia within the spectrum of mental illness, without going further, can make us wreck in a sea of ​​doubt. For this reason it is important, for patients and those accompanying them, that we locate the areas of the brain involved in this disorder.

First of all, it is necessary to clarify that anorexia is the effect of a obsessive-compulsive behavior that is born from the extreme concern about the consequences of their actions (although the medical community does not agree when establishing the order in which both factors are triggered).

How is it explained at the brain level?

Experts agree that our brain does not work the same as that of a healthy person. Since, among others, we have altered response system to pleasure and reward (located in the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area of ​​Tsai, cerebellum, and pituitary gland).

And it is precisely there, in the reward system of the brain where the circuit that regulates the responses is started that guarantee survival: including food.

The first difference with a healthy person is that he will eat whenever he feels hungry, since his brain will always generate a positive response. In contrast, our reward system does not will allow us to differentiate between negative and positive stimulus.

The second, our obsessive behavior causes overactivity in the caudate nucleus. In other words: we overexploit this region of the brain, when a healthy person only activates it in decision-making.

And since there are not two without three, here goes the third: neurobiologists point out that in our case there would be disturbances in the functioning of neurons responsible for communicating with the area of ​​the brain that detect hunger (the anterior insula). And as if that were not enough, it is also the region where they are located emotions, sensations and the perception we have of our own body.

What about our hormones?

With all that said it is quite clear that our brain highway have potholes and not only that, taking into account the various scientific studies, it seems that does not circulate everything that should:

There are several clinical pictures in which it has been detected deficiency of certain hormones that stimulate appetite and weight, as is the case of the ghrelin and the leptin, the latter in charge of controlling body weight.

But it does not stop there, to the possible neuroendocrine, hormonal and metabolic disorders can be added low thiamine levels, the vitamin that allows the body to take advantage of the energy from food.

And through our head, what happens?

Once the brain has been analyzed, it remains to observe the mind. Rather, the thoughts of a person with anorexia.

Psychiatrists agree that the obsessive-compulsive behavior that defines people with anorexia is always accompanied by similar psychological traits. Those that are repeated in the majority of medical histories of this eating disorder: low self-esteem, need for control, search for identity, sudden mood swings (euphoria-depressive state) or constant need to demonstrate and show oneself to third parties.

All this can be accompanied by a neurosis list that the longer it is, the more it will plunge the patient into the deep waters of anorexia.

This article is written with the sole intention of giving reflection to anyone who believes or has thought that anorexia is a whim, a adolescent disease, or even fools.

Also to remember that what we see: the tip of the iceberg it is only a small part of the huge block of ice that the waters hide. So great is what is under the sea that without warning it is capable of sinking the largest of ships.