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WHAT IS ORTHOREXIA?

Too Healthy?

Orthorexia nervosa is one of a little-known group of eating disorders. The term uses “ortho,” in its meaning as straight, correct and true, to modify “anorexia nervosa.” Orthorexia nervosa refers to a fixation on eating proper food.  Orthorexia begins innocently enough, as a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health. Over time, what they eat, how much, and the consequences of dietary indiscretion come to occupy a greater and greater proportion of the orthorexic’s day. The act of eating pure food begins to carry pseudo-spiritual connotations.  But the emphasis is intended to be on “unhealthy obsession.”  One can have an unhealthy obsession with something that is otherwise healthy. Think of exercise addiction, or workaholism.

At times (but not at all times) orthorexia seems to have elements of OCD. It may also have elements of standard anorexia.  But it is often not very much like typical OCD or typical anorexia.  The obsession for healthy foods could come from a number of sources such as family habits, society trends, economic problems, recent illness, or even just hearing something negative about a food type or group, which then leads orthorexics to ultimately eliminate the food or foods from their diet.  While orthorexia nervosa is not a formal medical condition, many doctors do feel that it explains an important and growing health phenomenon.

People suffering from this obsession may display the following signs.

• Spending more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food
• Planning tomorrow’s menu today
• Feeling virtuous about what they eat, but not enjoying it much
• Continually limiting the number of foods they eat
• Experiencing a reduced quality of life or social isolation (because their diet makes it difficult for them to eat anywhere but at home)
• Feeling critical of others who do not eat as well they do
• Skipping foods they once enjoyed in order to eat the “right” foods
• Feeling guilt or self-loathing when they stray from their diet
• Feeling in “total” control when they eat the correct diet

If you or someone you care about exhibits these traits.  There is a solution and there is help before it gets out of control.

Not Seeing Clearly

Warped Perception

What are the contributing factors of an eating disorder?  Even the slimmest women have, on occasion, stood in front of the mirror and asked: “Does this dress make me look fat?”  No matter who you are at some point you have been your own worst critic.  Why do we do this to ourselves and what drives body dysmorphia? Scientists have discovered that the body image a person projects in their own brain is “massively distorted” and can be up to two thirds wider than it is in reality. The brain’s own “body model” is also around a third shorter than the body actually is, according to the study at University College London.  Researchers believe the findings could explain why slim women look in the mirror and see themselves as fat. They may also help explain the cause of some eating disorders.

Dr Michael Longo, a neuroscientist is a leader in brain research, said: “These findings may well be relevant to psychiatric conditions involving body image such as anorexia, as there may be a general bias towards perceiving the body to be wider than it is.” He also says,“Some people look in the mirror and receive information which tells them they are not fat, but they still can’t use that to over-ride their distorted body model and make themselves believe it.”

The scientists had subjects place their hands under a board and relay where specific landmarks such as knuckles and fingertips were.  In doing so people were warped in their sense of size.  Scientists believe the distortion stems from the number of sensory signals being sent to the brain from different parts of the skin.  The brain’s warped “model” of the hand could be conveyed to the rest of the body,  therefore adding to the beginnings or bolstering feelings of negative body image.  For instance, if I am walking around feeling shorter and fatter than I really am these findings are saying that I am way off in my judgement.  Surprisingly, researchers found that subjects could pick their accurate hand size from other templates.  Therefore, researchers believe this shows that people have an accurate visual image of their own body but are still unable to use that information to over-ride the “brain model” which tells them they are larger.

Running Away From Unhealthy Behaviors

Drug abuse changes all aspects of an individual’s life.  There are so many detrimental behaviors that become ingrained throughout active addiction, one of which is inactivity.  Moreover whatever healthy aspects of an addict’s life are overshadowed by the atrocious amounts of toxins in their system.  Therefore it is crucial in sobriety to be active and healthy, in fact, it may be able to reverse or at least improve some of the damage done.  Scientists have known for some time that exercise sparks growth of new brain cells in mice, particularly in the hippocampus, the area related to memory and learning. They recently also found that it boosts the production of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which stimulates the rate at which nerve cells bind to create new pathways, increasing the brain’s storage capacity. Getting your body in motion gets your mind moving—both enhancing mental agility in the short term and protecting against cognitive decline in the long term.

Running for A Healthy Mind

The best brain-boosting results come from heart-rate-raising exertion—specifically, running. In a study conducted by Charles Hillman, PhD, and published in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, when subjects were given memory tests both before and after 30-minute bouts of running on a treadmill, lifting weights, or sitting quietly, those who ran were significantly quicker and more accurate on the second round of tests, while the others demonstrated no change at all.

“Other types of exercise, such as yoga, might have a stress-reducing meditative component,” Baker says, “but it’s aerobic exercise that seems to make the most difference to the brain.”

There are a few theories as to why this might be: One is that dramatic changes in blood flow could bring more growth factors to the brain from other parts of the body, helping to limber up connection-forming neurons, whereas with an activity such as weight-lifting, those growth factors are likely to remain in the muscles. Another is that it improves energy metabolism, ensuring that the noggin receives sufficient glucose and fuel. And a third is that it literally clears out the gunk that makes us dullwitted. Evidently, our brains, similar to our hearts, teeth, and lifestyle can suffer from a buildup of bad stuff.  Getting regular exercise over time can increase both gray and white matter in the brain and make a huge difference in how well you process and track information, stay on task, and allocate your mental resources.  Considering that addicts and alcoholics have had time depleting those resources it’s about time to put all that new found energy in sobriety to good use.

Addicted to Fat

Eating The Pain Away

Like many pleasurable behaviors—including sex and drug use—eating can trigger the release of dopamine, a feel-good chemical in the brain. This chemical reward, in turn, increases the likelihood that the action will eventually become habitual through positive reinforcement conditioning. If this reward is activated by overeating, these neurochemical patterns can make the behavior tough to shake—a result seen in many human cases.

Paul Kenny, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla., says, “Most people who are overweight would say, ‘I would like to control my weight and my eating,’ but they find it very hard to control their feeding behavior.”

Many studies have drawn the connection between excessive food intake and addiction in both animal models and humans. Many scientists have observed a similar map of dopamine receptors in the brains of many obese people as in those hooked on cocaine or alcohol. This new type research adds a more accepted understanding of just how food can modify the brain—and shows that differences in the brain from the outset can predispose an individual for overeating.  It is widely accepted that after someone dependent on a substance stops using it, however, it often takes time for depleted dopamine receptors to return to baseline levels. For example, in mice addicted to cocaine, it can take two days to regain normalized levels however, obese rats in the overeating studies took two weeks to regain their baseline density of receptors.  This research goes to show that overeating is a very difficult addiction to break because the withdrawl timeline is far longer and more ingrained than even that of a drug addict.

The sticky part about studying food addiction is that, unlike cocaine or alcohol, humans can’t exactly drop it—cold turkey or not.  You can’t really quit food . And humans are hardwired, thanks to eons of evolutionary selection, to seek high-calorie foods to keep us going through lean times. But with subsistence hunting, gathering and farming now little more than a niche lifestyle choice in wealthy nations, a brain set up to reward super-rich calorie snacks is more of a hazard than a help.  It is not easy to eat healthy in modern times.  ”Real food” is more expensive than processed sadly.  It is almost as though our society has set up drug dealers on every corner and asks those predisposed to have a food addiction to stay away.  It is not hopeless though, if you have an overeating disorder there is help.

Health Care Costs and Addiction…A relationship.

Health Care

The interrelationship between addiction treatment and general health was noted in a report by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2006, an Institute study bureau found that improving the nation’s general health and resolving the major problems of the overall health care system will require attending equally to the major problems of mental and substance use health care.

“Some of the destructive medical consequences of drug abuse and addiction are temporary – the conditions improve after patients receive treatment and are able to stop their drug use. Other consequences may be more persistent, diminishing the quality of patients’ health long after drug use has stopped. Whether short-lived or chronic, the growing list of recognized health consequences of abuse and addiction underscores the fact that drug abuse is not just a brain disease that exists in medical isolation – it manifests itself throughout the body with a broad array of medical consequences.”

–Feb 2004  Dr. Nora Volkow. Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse

Treating people for addiction disorders reduces expensive health care use. Without a doubt, there is a health care justification for treating addiction, but there also is a proven economic justification. Addiction treatment programs result in significant cost-savings for health care systems compared with the cost of not treating addictions. In addition, treating addiction will save money from the reduced costs of treating other general medical and chronic illness conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

When addiction is treated, the overall health of patient improves. The mountain of evidence shows that these patients fare better with their other health issues and use fewer costly medical services. Several studies have found that substance abuse treatment reduces the medical costs of patients with alcohol and drug use disorders, who utilize health care services at a much higher rate than other patients.

Addiction is pervasive in the United States. An estimated 23 million Americans suffer from alcohol and drug addiction, according to the most recent government survey. Yet only one in 10 of these persons – 2.4 million – get treatment.  With advances in our health care system we, as a nation may be able to arrest, no pun intended, our mental health problems and save our money.  Every little thing we do has an effect on the rest.