Implants For Anorexia: Tweaking The Brain

Posted on by ncfed

Some interesting research on brain implants for the treatment  of long standing anorexia has been done at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre and University Health Network
in Canada, who  conducted the study primarily to find out whether this procedure is
safe in people with severe cases of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.

About 2 in 3 of the people in this small trial had no good outcomes, and one or two people had serious side effects like seizures. However one or two people in this small group did quite well. It would have been really useful to have a comparison group of people who believed that they had the procedure; after all even the mental gastric band gets results.

So we know that this has effects but we dont know for who, and for how long the effects are going to last.

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)is being used for depresssion, alzheimers and obsessive compulsive disorder and has its place alongside pills, talking therapies, acupuncture and doing exercise plus everything else sane and crazy.

So, why is this arousing so much angst among clinicians?  On Linked-In, where clinicians air their opinions, there is some emotional rather than research-based dissent about putting things in anorexics’ brains. Where does this emotion come from when the latest research points to SOME people with anorexia having primary problems with brain organisation and function.

Someone even suggested that seriously ill anorexics are so impaired that they couldnt possibly give informed constent for this procedure anyway. Perhaps they wont understand the possible side effects that might occur. Does this mean that putting microchips in brains must always be unethical for anorexics?

It seems to me that the treatment for anorexia is not just about giving people the desire to eat. It is equally important that they should have the ability to cope with life and with their feelings. Some of this coping lies in the architecure of the brain.

Last week I “assessed” a young mother with long term anorexia, who creeps away for an hour or two each day to binge and purge leaving her young children on their own. She has been hospitalised at the Maudsley several times during her life so far and recovered only as far as she was able to get married and have her kids. She was very gaunt and very ill.  It seemed to me that she was completely spaced out and hardly able to hear a thing I said. Obviously she needed to back in hospital immediately but when I tried to take some action on her behalf I discovered that she had given me a false address.

Since years of therapy at the Maudsley has made no impact on her awful condition, would we not want to try DBS as a last resort?  Is it ethical for us to have emotional conversations about implanting things in brains while a family disintegrates?

Eating Disorders in Boarding Schools

Posted on by ncfed

I’ve given a talk last week at the Boarding Schools of Great Britain conference in London. The subject was eating disorders and this was the best attended event they have had for ages. The morning was me and the afternoon was case studies.

At any one time there are children in schools with dangerous eating practices and self hatred. But schools are just there to teach, how can they possibly deal with all the mental health issues they have to face?

There are stories of children who are starving and purging and boys taking supplements and exercising so much they can hardly stand up. These kids are not just ill, they are also affecting everyone around them. What is a school to do?

Ive written more about this on my blog. If you are a teacher or you have a school mate in trouble, check out my blog on http://deannetalks.blogspot.com and you can get in touch with us if you need to.

Two Die From Dieting

Posted on by ncfed

Laura Willmot dies from anorexic collapse one week after being sent home by her doctors.

In another world, a millionaire’s ex wife freezes to death in her car after her wine binge. In a barely noticed throwaway remark, her husband noted that “we ate separately, she was always on one sort of diet or another”. Living these separate lives, the couple drift apart. Had they remained together, she would not have met her lonely end in the cold.

Most people are going to be drawn toward the sad demise of Laura. Her untimely end simply brings about more questions;

Why, – when family treatment is known to be so helpful in anorexia, does her right to confidentiality trump the continued involvement of her parents? Anorexia is KNOWN to be a particular kind of madness, obliging sufferers to avoid treatment or accepting only that kind of treatment that is never going to work. Even if someone is biologically 18 years of age, we KNOW that anorexia freezes emotional time, and they are probably just as old as they ever were when they first became ill.

Why would a psychiatrist Dr Herzig trust a patient to make her own decision, knowing that her brain is dulled by lack of nutrition and a shrieking anorexic voice.

Why doesn’t the NHS insist on enteral feeding  over and over again until the patient has the strength and the will to fight their illness or get sick of repeated hospital admissions. If we can just keep someone alive for long enough, they do fight their illness and they do struggle toward a life of better health and more connection. It takes a long time, but it does happen.

Where anorexia is concerned, Laura’s case highlights the fact that intractable anorexia is a devil to treat despite all the lovely new theories we have. However I have seen some desperate cases recover. One lady I know  spent almost 18 years in and out of hospital,  but started to get better shorly after I spoke to her. I’m still not sure what I did. She is now on my training, learning how to help others in a proper way.

Where dieting wives are concerned, please stop it. Eat with your partner and with your children. Celebrate your lives with food, talking, sharing, whatever. Don’t let diets rule your life.

Two lives wasted. It doesn’t have to be like this.

 

 

 

 

You’re Fat! Fat! Fat, Fat, Fat!

Posted on by ncfed

Research from the Met. University of Leeds shows that the middles classes are now fatter than the poor classes who are usually blamed for their ignorance and bad eating choices. Giles Coren writes in the Sunday times that we might now call things we hate “fat” since the word can no longer be disguised as thinly veiled class snobbery.

Janice Turner writing in the Times on the same day says that our obsession with the looks of our politicians is damaging public life, weakening debate and making poor satire. No-one should care if Teresa May loses 20 lbs, thats nothing connected with her job.

Fat still then is a very emotive word, even if is now means “middle class”. I’ve written more about this, please check out my big blog at http://deannetalks.blogspot.com

 

 

Does Facebook Cause Eating Disorders?

Posted on by ncfed

Today I was SO shocked to read about the stuff that young boys including class mates(never mind the old pervs) post on social media to try and induce young girls to engage in sexual behaviour online. They are calling their classmates whores, sluts and worse. I could hardly bear to read the things that they are writing. I cant bring myself to write any of it here.

One young girl – she was 13 years old, exposed to this onslaught, developed anorexia.

Remembering back to when I was growing up, it was hard enough being 13 and trying to find my place in this new adult world without having to face attacks on my reputation and my dignity. Being 13, 14, 16, 17…… was just about as much as I could handle.

My mother used to say that sticks and stones can’t hurt you, she was right, they may not hurt, they can kill.

We need our dignity and our sense of just enough pride and self respect as the ship that sails us through the turbulent seas of life. Why steal this precious thing – a sense of a lovely self – from a growing young person who thinks she knows it all but knows nothing at all.

We have to do something to protect our children. We have to name and shame the persecutors who think it’s cool to behave like this. We must tell ourselves that we CAN live without Facebook, Instagram and the like. I did. Can’t we?  If we can’t what hope for our children.

Our New Website

Posted on by ncfed

I’m thrilled to make the first post on our new website. If you have already seen us, have another look around and let us know what you think, what we could add.

Im trying to keep it simple and not confuse people with too much chatter. I will blog here and you may find expanded versions of my thoughts about topical issues on my blogsite http://deannetalks.blogspot.com Watch this space!

Does Eating Rule Your Xmas Life?

Posted on by ncfed

I wonder how everyone is managing now that Christmas is almost upon us. When things are tough, the one thing we want to do is indulge on warm tasty food. How are you coping?

What Helps Eating Disorder Recovery

Posted on by Patrick Nel

From the persepctive of someone who suffers.

Recovering from an eating disorder isn’t just about the skills of the therapist. There is so much research out there about treatment, causes, associations and outcome studies. But we need to hear it from the horse’s mouth to be really present and available for the people we want to help.

Maybe our job is to help people to want to get better; to make recovery seem more attractive than staying ill. We must beware about being too enthusiastic about this. It would be like trying to convince someone gay that they would find life better if they were straight. We must realise how scary change can be.

Then our job is to guide them along more helpful pathways, not look back and find something or someone to blame. The client is the expert, not us, as Emma Woolf showed us in her memoire of recovery, “An Apple A Day”. But, the client still needs us by their side as what… A therapist?  A mentor?  A guru? They need our wisdom alongside their own.

This is what they tell us aids their recovery; in no order of importance

Reconnection:  – but not, I think the pro anorexia, community. People with eating problems often fear being ordinary and unimportant but this isn’t the most helpful way to show how unique you really are. They say that things like YOGA, JOURNALING and SPIRITUALITY helps them to reconnect to themselves. Therapists please take note!

Close relationships: Relationships aren’t always helpful so we need to learn more about this.

Statements of support:  Parents and carers need to say “I’m there for you” – what other statements are useful and what are not. If someone says “You are looking better these days” it can send your client into a spiral of worry.

Empathetic Friends: Friends keep away from someone with an eating disorder because they feel they have to tread on glass. Or they just avoid the subject altogether. I need to know, what exactly is an “empathetic friend?”

Compassion: we have to feel sorry for someone, not just be angry with them. They also need to learn to feel some compassion for themselves. Eating disorders are such hard work.

Therapy: it’s good to know that therapy helps as well, but looking forward is more important than looking back.

Learning HOW to eat healthfully: There are too many bad rules out there about food so people are scared of useful foods like carbs.  I would add that learning the real facts about food as well as practicing mindful eating skills is great. Use eating experiences as experiments to banish fear about weight gain. Getting back in touch with appetite with proper training is much more helpful than simply persuading people to “eat properly.”

Education about the effects of the disorder: This has to be done with compassion not as a threat.

Acknowledgement  The Journal of Treatment And Prevention Bruner Mazel May-June 2012

We try to provide this help to people with eating problems. If there is anything that we can do or write to help people on their recovery journey, let us know. A quick email to admin@ncfed.com will always guarantee a personal reply from the Founder, Deanne

The Men Who Made Us Fat

Posted on by Patrick Nel

Last night I walked down Marylebone HIgh Street, London. Every two yards there was another place to eat, a Pain Quotidien, a cafe, an epicerie, a Costa Coffee and a cake shop from heaven. People were eating as they walked along the street.

20 years ago I walked down the same street and every 100 yards there was a place to eat and very few people ate as they walked.

40 years ago I walked down Marylebone High Street. There were no places to eat, lots of other shops and no one ate as they walked.

They assume that people who gain weight are weak willed. On the contrary, people who keep their weight stable have to work really hard 24 hours a day 7 days a week to avoid – like bouncing bagatelles- the food they see around them saying “eat me now, you will feel nice, I will give you a lift, you don’t need to be hungry -you just need to be wanting a bit of fun and what’s the harm in that”.

On top of that are the dangers that we can’t see; the men who made us fat have inserted them quietly into the food we eat. Corn syrup, tastes so nice but it is food that our body cannot deal with properly. Relax, have a beer, or a bit of ketchup on your chips. It will make you fat while it makes them rich.

Going to put petrol in your car? Have a chocolate bar, it will reward you for doing all that hard work. They made it big so you would spend more money and feel virtuous because you hadn’t bought 2 bars.  They knew that you would eat it all up in one go because thats what people do. And while you were scoffing it made them rich.

Did you know that the food industry has blackmailed, denigrated, rubbished and possibly even murdered the people who wanted to tell you the truth. They have bought or crushed the politicians who could have done something about this. They wanted to make you fat so that you would need what they had to sell you.

And everyone is frightened of taking them on.See that giant bag of crisps?  See that double caramel flavoured frappucino?  JUST SAY NO.

 

 

Vogue Bans Catwalk Models

Posted on by Patrick Nel

Today there is a big fuss about anorexia in the press. Does this make it even more important to ban underweight models from our catwalks. Or is anorexia nothing to do with the size of models. You might like to see what I have written on my Eating Angel Blog