Ten‐year follow‐up of adolescent‐onset anorexia nervosa: physical health and neurodevelopment

Abstract

To study the development of physical health and some neuromotor functions in anorexia nervosa (AN) 51 individuals (48 females, three males) with a mean AN onset of 14 years, recruited after community screening, were followed prospectively together with 51 age-, sex-, and school-matched individuals without AN (controls). About 10 years after AN onset, all individuals were examined in respect of physical health and neurodevelopment. There were no deaths. Weight and height had normalised, except in three participants with persistent AN. Significantly more participants with AN had a physical complaint/disorder, including hirsutism. This might be a long-term complication in weight restored AN. Dysdiadochokinesis occurred almost exclusively among individuals with former AN in accordance with our previous studies.

Is Impaired Set-Shifting an Endophenotype of Anorexia Nervosa?

“…The set-shifting difficulties evident in this group of women with anorexia nervosa are largely consistent with previous reports from our group (2)(3)(4). Slowness on the dysdiadochokinesis test in anorexia nervosa, which did not reach statistical significance in our study, has also been reported by a different group (30,31). Our previous study using the same test battery (3) found no effects of SSRI medication use on neuropsychological performance.…”

Anorexia nervosa and autism spectrum disorders: Guided investigation of social cognitive endophenotypes.

“…C. Gillberg, Gillberg, Rastam, & Johansson, 1996; Ivarsson, Rastam, Wentz, Gillberg, & Gillberg, 2000; Nilsson, Gillberg, Gillberg, & Rastam, 1999; Wentz, Gillberg, Gillberg, & Rastam, 2001). These researchers identified a cohort of 51 individuals with AN with a mean age of 16 years at baseline and now have followed this sample in parallel with an age-, sex-, and school-matched sample over a 10-year period (Nilsson et al, 1999; Wentz et al, 2001; Wentz, Gillberg, Gillberg, & Rastam, 2000). Baseline methodology included a semi-structured family-genetic interview with the child's mother regarding psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, and physical symptoms among first degree relatives, city-wide physical exams of all adolescent students, and blind medical chart reviews (I.…”

“…Results from this investigation supported a sustained pattern of interpersonal deficit in a subset of individuals with AN. Before discussing findings regarding social functioning, it is noteworthy that after 10 years only 39% of the sample with AN at baseline were free of eating disturbance compared with 90% of the comparison group (Wentz et al, 2000, 2001). Limiting our discussion to findings of interpersonal difficulties, individuals with ASD were overrepresented in the group with AN (28% vs. 12%), and of those individuals with AN who exhibited a poor outcome, individuals with ASD were disproportionately present (I.…”

“…However, most notable is burgeoning evidence supporting poor perceptual organization capacities in AN, particularly in regard to central coherence (Chowdhury, Gordon, & Lask, 2001; I. C. Gillberg et al, 1996; Lask et al, 2005; Wentz et al, 2000). Importantly, these visual–perceptual deficits have been demonstrated in both adolescent and adult patients and have been reported to persist with recovery (Lask et al, 2005).…”

Bridging of childhood obsessive‐compulsive personality disorder traits and adult eating disorder symptoms: A network analysis approach

“…Perfectionism in childhood, a hallmark feature of OCPD, has also been identified as a risk factor for the development of AN and BN (Wade et al., 2016). Considerable research also demonstrates that the presence of OCPD traits is associated with poorer treatment response (Agras et al., 2014; Crane et al., 2007; Wentz et al., 2000). The culmination of this evidence has led to the hypothesis that OCPD traits may represent endophenotypic traits underpinning the development of AN and BN (Tenconi et al., 2010).…”