14 DAY TRIAL // A team of researchers from the Scripps Research Institute (SRI) argues in a new study that errors which occur in normal cholesterol metabolism may be one of the triggers for developing anorexia nervosa, a condition characterized by the irrational fear of gaining weight.
The same disruptions may also cause mood and eating behavior changes, the team argues. The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry, is not meant to suggest that abnormalities in cholesterol processing are the root cause of anorexia nervosa, but rather just one of the causes.
Generally speaking, people suffering from this condition display a series of other symptoms as well, such as a predisposition towards perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and obsessive behaviors. “These findings point in a direction that probably no one would have considered taking before,” says SRI professor and lead study researcher, Nicholas J. Schork, PhD.
In order to arrive at these conclusions, experts at SRI and the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine investigated genetic information collected from 1,200 anorexia patients and 2,000 non-anorexic control participants, PsychCentral reports.