Oxytocin, a brain chemical known as the "love drug," may possibly help treat people with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, according to research by British and Korean scientists.
Anorexia nervosa affects millions of people worldwide - about 1 in 150 girls in England, where it is the leading cause of mental health-related deaths.
People suffering from the eating disorder have problems with food, eating and body image, as well as anxiety and hypersensitivity to negative emotions, among other things.
"Patients with anorexia have a range of social difficulties which often start in their early teenage years, before the onset of the illness," Janet Treasure, a professor at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, told Reuters. "By using oxytocin as a potential treatment for anorexia, we are focusing on some of these underlying problems."
After researchers studied anorexic patients, they found oxytocin altered their tendencies to become fixated on images of fattening foods and large body shapes, suggesting it could be developed as a treatment to help them overcome unhealthy obsessions with diet.
Treasure's team analyzed 31 anorexic and 33 healthy patients who were given either oxytocin or a placebo. Participants were asked before and after taking the drug or placebo to look at images relating to weight, high and low calorie foods, and large and thin body shapes. With each image, researchers measured how quickly participants identified them.
The results, published in the Psychoneuroendocrinology journal, showed that after taking oxytocin, anorexic patients focused less on images of food and overweight bodies.
In a second study, the researchers used the same scenario, but tested reactions to facial expressions such as anger, disgust or happiness. After taking a dose of oxytocin, patients with anorexia were less likely to focus on the "disgust" faces.
Professor Youl-Ri Kim, who worked with Treasure, said the result "hints at the advent of a novel, ground-breaking treatment option for patients with anorexia."
