Anorexic bone: lost but not found.

Anorexic bone: Lost but not found

Stooped shoulders and brittle bones are the hallmarks of osteoporosis, a gradual loss of bone that affects about 20 million people in the United States. Recently, researchers have increased their efforts to find its causes, as well as ways to prevent or reverse it (SN: 11/28/87, p.347). Although most of those affected are postmenopausal women, those suffering from anorexia nervosa -- with its self-starvation and subsequent drop in extrogen levels -- also show reduced bone densities. This so-called osteopenia may not be reversible, even is a young patient recovers from the underlying anorexia, said researchers from Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital last week during a meeting of the American Federation for Clinical Research in Washington, D.C.

In a prospective study, Nancy A. Rigottie and her co-workers followed 27 women with the eating disorder for 12 to 52 months. At the beginning of the study, the women's weights averaged 69 percent of the medically accepted ideal weight, and menstruation had been absent at least one year. The researchers measured bone density, weight gain and hormone levels during treatment, and gave either calcium or estrogen to some of the women. Eight women gained weight, but while bone loss halted in those women, it did not reverse itself. Amount of physical exercise, calcium and estrogen treatments, and return of menstruation also did not affect bone restoration. The scientists conclude that "a period of severe weight loss in young women may be a risk factor for premature osteoporosis."