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American Morning

New Source of Eating Disorders Suspected

Aired December 10, 2002 - 08:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There's some important new medical research that could change the way doctors treat eating disorders.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is standing by in Atlanta, CNN Center, with the details.

So Sanjay, listening to you last week in my -- I have to admit, morphine haze in the hospital, you sounded more like an orthopedic surgeon than a neurologist -- or neurosurgeon, as it happens to be.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. I was really concerned about you, Paula. I was going to ask you, actually, if you are going a good patient now after that.

ZAHN: I am being a very good patient, doing all that stuff -- that torture stuff you have to do two hours a day on the leg so you can walk normally in three months.

GUPTA: Yes -- no, we were thinking about you a lot, no question about that, Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you. Glad to be back.

GUPTA: So, eating disorders. This is something that is very common. Seven million women have it, about a million men as well. People don't often think of the men.

But as common as they are, they are also complicated. A whole host of different factors could possibly cause eating disorders. Let's take a look at some of them. You can see the list there. Psychological factors, no question about it, as well as cultural, social, familial factors, genetic, possibly excessive serotonin. All these sorts of things.

There is another possible cause now that is being thrown into the mix as well. It is decidedly more sciency (ph), Paula. We're talking about the possibility of an autoimmune process causing eating disorders. The same sort of autoimmune process that causes M.S., causes lupus, causes rheumatoid arthritis.

Some researchers decided to study that very issue. They actually looked at 57 women that had eating disorders, and they decided to actually measure their blood. Specifically for some sort of autoimmune process antibodies that actually attack your body's own native cells to find out if, in fact, there are a lot of antibodies in the blood of these women that might influence the way that they regulate how much they eat, regulate their metabolism. And in a majority of women, over 80 percent, they found that, in fact, that was just the case, that there were these antibodies that actually go to the brain and affect how much someone wants to eat, how much someone wants to signal their body that they need food, things like that. Sort of interesting, the first time something like that had really been studied, although there had been this notion for a long time that there was this connection, literally this connection between the mind and the brain and the body in terms of these eating disorders.

A very complicated sort of diagnosis, Paula, but certainly this has been one of those things that people just haven't known for a long time, what causes it, and this may be a possible answer.

ZAHN: So do you suspect this then will lead to new treatments for bulimia and anorexia?

GUPTA: Right -- there's not a lot of good treatments right now for either one of those eating disorders. Take a look at some of the eating treatments right now. Psychotherapy is one of them, nutritional counseling. SSRI antidepressants, this is a type of medication primarily used for depression, but has met with some success when treating eating disorders, helping women sort of maintain their weight, even gain weight in some situations. What we're talking about here now is possibly actually treating these autoimmune problems much in the same way that you treat arthritis, trying to knock down the amount of antibodies that are actually causing the problem in the brain.

Again, Paula, it's early, but this definitely has a lot of people very excited about that possibility.

You and I always talk about the fact that it's probably a few years down the line, but we like to keep you posted, get you the information early. But this is something we are going to keep an eye on.

ZAHN: In this case, we have to be patient. Before we let you go, you want to quickly tick off what the specific autoimmune disease is we're talking about here?

GUPTA: Yes. Autoimmune diseases, again -- autoimmune are one of these sort of interesting things in science. This is when the body sort of looks at what is normal tissue in the body, normal tissue that should be there, and says, You know what, that tissue looks odd. That tissue looks foreign. Let's attack it.

That's exactly what happens in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, M.S., lupus, diseases like that. These antibodies actually attack the body's own native tissues. Those are some examples of it, and again, when we're talking about eating disorders, what they are finding is that the antibodies level do seem to be increased in some of these patients with those eating disorders.

ZAHN: Well, thank you for that report today, and thank you for your counsel last week. I needed it. GUPTA: Hope you feel better. Yes, take care.

ZAHN: March 8, come off the crutches. Countdown is on.

GUPTA: All right. Mark it on the calendar.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 10, 2002 - 08:41   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There's some important new medical research that could change the way doctors treat eating disorders.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is standing by in Atlanta, CNN Center, with the details.

So Sanjay, listening to you last week in my -- I have to admit, morphine haze in the hospital, you sounded more like an orthopedic surgeon than a neurologist -- or neurosurgeon, as it happens to be.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. I was really concerned about you, Paula. I was going to ask you, actually, if you are going a good patient now after that.

ZAHN: I am being a very good patient, doing all that stuff -- that torture stuff you have to do two hours a day on the leg so you can walk normally in three months.

GUPTA: Yes -- no, we were thinking about you a lot, no question about that, Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you. Glad to be back.

GUPTA: So, eating disorders. This is something that is very common. Seven million women have it, about a million men as well. People don't often think of the men.

But as common as they are, they are also complicated. A whole host of different factors could possibly cause eating disorders. Let's take a look at some of them. You can see the list there. Psychological factors, no question about it, as well as cultural, social, familial factors, genetic, possibly excessive serotonin. All these sorts of things.

There is another possible cause now that is being thrown into the mix as well. It is decidedly more sciency (ph), Paula. We're talking about the possibility of an autoimmune process causing eating disorders. The same sort of autoimmune process that causes M.S., causes lupus, causes rheumatoid arthritis.

Some researchers decided to study that very issue. They actually looked at 57 women that had eating disorders, and they decided to actually measure their blood. Specifically for some sort of autoimmune process antibodies that actually attack your body's own native cells to find out if, in fact, there are a lot of antibodies in the blood of these women that might influence the way that they regulate how much they eat, regulate their metabolism. And in a majority of women, over 80 percent, they found that, in fact, that was just the case, that there were these antibodies that actually go to the brain and affect how much someone wants to eat, how much someone wants to signal their body that they need food, things like that. Sort of interesting, the first time something like that had really been studied, although there had been this notion for a long time that there was this connection, literally this connection between the mind and the brain and the body in terms of these eating disorders.

A very complicated sort of diagnosis, Paula, but certainly this has been one of those things that people just haven't known for a long time, what causes it, and this may be a possible answer.

ZAHN: So do you suspect this then will lead to new treatments for bulimia and anorexia?

GUPTA: Right -- there's not a lot of good treatments right now for either one of those eating disorders. Take a look at some of the eating treatments right now. Psychotherapy is one of them, nutritional counseling. SSRI antidepressants, this is a type of medication primarily used for depression, but has met with some success when treating eating disorders, helping women sort of maintain their weight, even gain weight in some situations. What we're talking about here now is possibly actually treating these autoimmune problems much in the same way that you treat arthritis, trying to knock down the amount of antibodies that are actually causing the problem in the brain.

Again, Paula, it's early, but this definitely has a lot of people very excited about that possibility.

You and I always talk about the fact that it's probably a few years down the line, but we like to keep you posted, get you the information early. But this is something we are going to keep an eye on.

ZAHN: In this case, we have to be patient. Before we let you go, you want to quickly tick off what the specific autoimmune disease is we're talking about here?

GUPTA: Yes. Autoimmune diseases, again -- autoimmune are one of these sort of interesting things in science. This is when the body sort of looks at what is normal tissue in the body, normal tissue that should be there, and says, You know what, that tissue looks odd. That tissue looks foreign. Let's attack it.

That's exactly what happens in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, M.S., lupus, diseases like that. These antibodies actually attack the body's own native tissues. Those are some examples of it, and again, when we're talking about eating disorders, what they are finding is that the antibodies level do seem to be increased in some of these patients with those eating disorders.

ZAHN: Well, thank you for that report today, and thank you for your counsel last week. I needed it. GUPTA: Hope you feel better. Yes, take care.

ZAHN: March 8, come off the crutches. Countdown is on.

GUPTA: All right. Mark it on the calendar.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com