Anorexia was equated with drug addiction
Anorexia was equated with drug addiction

Video: Anorexia was equated with drug addiction

Video: Anorexia was equated with drug addiction
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French scientists have come to an interesting conclusion: the feeling of hunger in anorexia can cause addiction, similar to narcotic. Experts have found that anorexia and ecstasy use have the same effect on the pleasure center and appetite control in the brain.

Both anorexia and ecstasy use are associated with decreased appetite. Anorexics have limited food intake despite severe energy deficits.

Anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates among mental disorders. To date, there are practically no effective methods of combating this disease.

Valerie Compant, the head of the study at the French National Center for Scientific Research, and her colleagues conducted their experiments on mice in three stages. At the first stage, scientists stimulated 5-HT4 receptors in mice (analogous receptors in humans are responsible for "psychic reward" - a feeling of pleasure in response to drugs, sex, etc.). At the same time, the animals' need for food decreased. At the second stage, the mice were injected with the CART peptide, or their production was blocked. With an increase in the level of this peptide, animals began to eat less, and vice versa, a decreased level of CART was accompanied by an increase in appetite. In the last stage, the scientists gave ecstasy to genetically modified mice with a reduced number of 5-HT4 receptors.

Unlike normal mice, in genetically modified rodents, drug administration was not accompanied by a decrease in appetite. This confirmed the hypothesis of scientists that the investigated receptors are responsible for the decrease in appetite when using ecstasy. "Our seven-year research has opened up the possibility of using 5-HT4 receptors as a potential therapeutic target in the treatment of patients with anorexia," concluded Kompan.

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