Dataset Information

Food avoidance in anorexia nervosa: associated and predicting factors.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Qualitative food avoidance is a significant issue in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and restoring diet diversity is an important part of the treatment process. We aimed to identify clinical factors which drive food avoidance and predict its maintenance in patients with AN.

Methods

In this multicentre longitudinal study, 130 female outpatients with AN were assessed before and after 4 months of care in clinical centres specialized in AN. We assessed levels of avoidance of 16 food items, as well as body mass index (BMI), eating disorder severity, symptoms of depression and anxiety, emotional state, daily-life functioning, and body image perception.

Results

We found that qualitative food avoidance was associated with the clinical severity of AN, anxiety and mood dimensions, and BMI- and body image-related factors. A younger age at onset predicted the maintenance of food avoidance after 4 months of treatment. Additional exploratory analyses suggested that anxiety and negative affect caused food avoidance more than the opposite.

Conclusion

Qualitative food avoidance can be an indicator of illness severity. During treatment, focusing on reducing anxiety and negative affect may be a way to indirectly reduce food avoidance and restore diet diversity.

Level of evidence

Level III: Evidence obtained from cohort or case-control analytic studies.

SUBMITTER: Di Lodovico L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9950187 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Food avoidance in anorexia nervosa: associated and predicting factors.

Di Lodovico L L Vansteene C C Poupon D D Gorwood P P Duriez P P

Eating and weight disorders : EWD 20230223 1

<h4>Purpose</h4>Qualitative food avoidance is a significant issue in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and restoring diet diversity is an important part of the treatment process. We aimed to identify clinical factors which drive food avoidance and predict its maintenance in patients with AN.<h4>Methods</h4>In this multicentre longitudinal study, 130 female outpatients with AN were assessed before and after 4 months of care in clinical centres specialized in AN. We assessed levels of avoidance ...[more]

PMID: 36821001

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Project description:BackgroundAdolescence is a critical developmental period for the study of anorexia nervosa (AN), an illness characterized by extreme restriction of food intake. The maturation of the reward system during adolescence combined with recent neurobiological models of AN led to the hypothesis that early on in illness, restrictive food choices would be associated with activity in nucleus accumbens reward regions, rather than caudate regions identified among adults with AN.MethodsHealthy adolescents (HC, n = 41) and adolescents with AN or atypical AN (atypAN, n = 76) completed a Food Choice Task during fMRI scanning. Selection of high-fat foods and choice-related activation in nucleus accumbens and anterior caudate regions-of-interest (ROIs) were compared between individuals with AN/atypAN and HC. Associations were examined between choice-related activation and choice preferences among the AN group. Exploratory analyses examined associations between choice-related activation and psychological assessments among the patient group.ResultsAdolescents with AN or atypAN selected fewer high-fat foods than HC (t = -5.92, p < .001). Counter to predictions, there were no significant group differences in choice-related activation in the ROIs. Among individuals with AN or atypAN, choice-related neural activity in the anterior caudate was significantly negatively associated with high-fat food selections in the task (r = -.32, p = .024). In exploratory analyses, choice-related anterior caudate activation was positively associated with psychological measures of illness severity among patients (p's < .05, uncorrected).ConclusionsIn this large cohort of adolescents with AN/atypAN, there was no evidence of altered reward system engagement during food choice. While there was no group difference in choice-related caudate activation, the associations with choices and psychological measures continue to suggest that this neural region is implicated in illness. Longitudinal analyses will clarify whether neural variability relates to longer-term course.

Project description:Anorexia nervosa (AN) and atypical AN (AtypAN) are complex neurobiological illnesses that typically onset in adolescence with an often treatment-refractory and chronic illness trajectory. Aberrant eating behaviors in this population have been linked to abnormalities in food reward and cognitive control, but prior studies have not examined respective contributions of clinical characteristics and metabolic state. Research is needed to identify specific disruptions and inform novel intervention targets to improve outcomes. Fifty-nine females with AN (n = 34) or AtypAN (n = 25), ages 10-22 years, all ≤90% expected body weight, and 34 age-matched healthy controls (HC) completed a well-established neuroimaging food cue paradigm fasting and after a standardized meal, and we used ANCOVA models to investigate main and interaction effects of Group and Appetitive State on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activation for the contrast of exposure to high-calorie food images minus objects. We found main effects of Group with greater BOLD activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), hippocampus, caudate, and putamen for AN/AtypAN versus HC groups, and in the three-group model including AN, AtypAN, and HC (sub-)groups, where differences were primarily driven by greater activation in the AtypAN subgroup versus HC group. We found a main effect of Appetitive State with increased premeal BOLD activation in the hypothalamus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and caudate for models that included AN/AtypAN and HC groups, and in BOLD activation in the nucleus accumbens for the model that included AN, AtypAN, and HC (sub-)groups. There were no interaction effects of Group with Appetitive State for any of the models. Our findings demonstrate robust feeding-state independent group effects reflecting greater neural activation of specific regions typically associated with reward and cognitive control processing across AN and AtypAN relative to healthy individuals in this food cue paradigm. Differential activation of specific brain regions in response to the passive viewing of high-calorie food images may underlie restrictive eating behavior in this clinical population.

Dataset Information

Food avoidance in anorexia nervosa: associated and predicting factors.

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Level of evidence

Publications

Food avoidance in anorexia nervosa: associated and predicting factors.

Similar Datasets

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