It's an interesting new debate.
The review of past research on the topic, published in the June issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry, finds that certain genetic and cellular processes get activated during starvation in organisms ranging from yeast to fruit flies to mice to humans. The idea, said study researcher Donard Dwyer, is that in people with a broken starvation response, a few initial rounds of dieting could trigger a metabolism gone haywire.
In this theory, it's not stubbornness or a mental disorder that keeps anorexics from eating, it's their own bodies. The theory could explain why it can be so difficult to convince anorexic patients that anything is wrong with them, Dwyer told LiveScience.
