By Dr. Li De Zhi
What is anorexia?
What are the types of anorexia?
It can be divided into infantile anorexia and adolescence anorexia. Infantile anorexia is related to improper feeding times and bad eating habits. For example, not eating regularly is an issue. You won't have an appetite if you eat snacks or candy before a meal. One must always have something in your stomach so that blood sugar levels do not drop.
Adolescent anorexia is more common in women who are excessively pursuing a slim figure. It occurs in women, and tends to start between the ages of 13 to 25 years old. Because of the long-term eating control, some people even try to constantly stimulate the pharynx with their fingers in order to spit the food out. This disrupts the normal nerve reflex artificially, and leads the brain to no longer get stimulated when seeing food. The reduction of secretion of digestive juices, peristalsis of stomach and slowing down of the bowel – all of these are reasons why people suffering from anorexia don’t feel hungry when they see food. Instead, they feel disgusted and sick. Consequently, it affects the pathological nerve reflex. Anorexia is often accompanied by changes in personality, malnutrition, decrease of cardiac function and metabolic and endocrine disorders. For example, the female suffers from amenorrhea. Around 5 to 15 percent of people die from issues like cardiac complications, multiple organ failure, secondary infections and suicide.
How to treat and prevent adolescent anorexia?
For patients who haven’t eaten food for a long time, their gastrointestinal function will weaken. So when having food, one should start with a soft diet, or more meals but in smaller quantities. If you eat excessively at one time, you will feel bloated and have abdominal pain. You should take oral medicine to improve appetite and digestive function. Some people with light symptoms can use traditional Chinese medicine to nourish the spleen and the stomach. One must also get enough sleep to ease psychological pressure and use zinc supplementation therapy to increase the appetite. Severe cases will require medicines to correct water electrolyte disorder and malnutrition. The use of behavior therapy and psychotherapy will also help patients, especially those who are above 18 and whose history of the disease exceeds three years. Those who cannot be helped by medicine and therapy can resort to surgery, although it is often not needed. A balanced diet, good habits and enough sleep can help you to prevent anorexia.
