People who have experienced eating disorders (EDs) at least once in their lives understand that curing them is not so easy. An obsessive desire to lose weight in every possible way, a panicky fear of gaining weight and constant thoughts about food are present in the life of every patient. We decided to check whether it is possible to completely cure eating disorder.

Millionaire blogger Anastasia Burchuladze, better known by her pseudonym Anastasiz, gained popularity thanks to videos on the YouTube social network dedicated to the fight against anorexia. Three years after the release of the first story, the girl recorded her last conversational video about her journey, saying that she was able to forget about anorexia forever. Another example of a complete cure for eating disorder is Ekaterina Roganovskaya, blogger with an audience of 350,000 subscribers. The girl created a blog on Instagram to help other people suffering from eating disorder by talking about her treatment - diet and daily exercise. Having gained popularity, Roganovskaya began to host website, which sells checklists and recipe books to help overcome eating disorders. Secular magazines regularly report on starswho have overcome anorexia. Among them, according to these articles, are Victoria Beckham, Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga. Also in Media a lot stories o less famous people with the wording “defeated anorexia.”

Eating disorders in the International Classification of Diseases include to class F, that is, to mental and behavioral disorders and includes anorexia nervosa and bulimia, including their atypical forms, overeating associated with other psychological disorders, vomiting associated with other psychological disorders, other eating disorders, including eating inedible, and unspecified eating disorders. Although eating disorder has the image of a “fashionable disease”, all people are susceptible to various types of disorders - regardless of age, gender or lifestyle. Thus, anorexia nervosa is predominantly susceptible females, from adolescence to 40 years of age, approximately 1.2% of all humanity faces with this disorder, and its mortality reaches up to 10%. At the same time, older people are prone to compulsive overeating, and meets it occurs in approximately 3.5% of women and 2% of men. And with bulimia nervosa and neurogenic bulimia, the weight of patients remains within the normal range or even exceeds it.

The main problem in the treatment of eating disorders is that the patient most often doesn't realize themselves as such, refusing treatment and help as a result. For the correction of all types of eating disorders apply various methods of psychotherapy, in some cases they also resort to drug treatment. Due to the absence of a public danger, eating disorder in Russia does not fall under the criteria of diseases for which compulsory hospitalization may be used. Due to the limited methods of assistance within the framework of official medicine, pseudo-specialists for the treatment of eating disorder offer a wide range of alternative methods that are not confirmed by the principles of evidence-based medicine - For example, massage, meditation, acupuncture, yoga and aromatherapy. However, as can be seen from the ICD classification, eating disorder is a psychiatric disease, therefore, treatment requires a psychiatrist who can also involve specialists from other areas (for example, to correct problems that have arisen in other organ systems). Moreover, even authoritative MediaWhen they write about a problem, they give the floor not to doctors, but to representatives of alternative directions.

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According to research and statistics Oxford Center for Clinical Psychology, long-term remission after anorexia nervosa is observed in 40–70% of adolescents, another 20–30% can be brought into partial remission, and in 10–20% the disease becomes chronic and remains for life. In the case of bulimia, long-term remission after five years of intensive therapy occurs in 35-75% of adolescents and adults, while there are cases of its onset over a shorter period - only one to two years. Experts note that 40% to 60% of patients experience some symptoms of eating disorder for the rest of their lives. In another research The statistics are similar: in 60% of patients with eating disorder, it is possible to achieve complete absence of manifestations for a long time thanks to constant therapy, 20% are partially restored, in the rest the disease becomes chronic.

Triggers that can restart a seemingly already cured disease have also been identified. For example, such a factor is often becomes pregnancy in women with a history of anorexia nervosa. With lack of weight and unreasonable refusal of food during pregnancy faces up to a third of American women. Entered even a term that is not used, however, yet in the ICD is pregorexia, which describes the manifestations of anorexia in pregnant women. At the same time are noted difficulties in diagnosing this condition, associated both with the taboo nature of the topic for the patient and with the lack of awareness of obstetricians and gynecologists about it. Re-start compulsive overeating that has already been overcome Maybe both chronic stress and some traumatic event. Effective drugs (including antidepressants, psychostimulants and appetite suppressants) that provide a long-term effect in the treatment of compulsive overeating not found.

It should also be noted that researchers have noted a relationship between specific genes and the development of eating disorder. So, for compulsive overeating highlighted three associated genes and one for anorexia and bulimia. This does not mean that carriers of these genes will never be able to completely get rid of the manifestations of eating disorder in everyday life, but they will be more likely to develop a chronic, relapsing type of the disease.

Thus, to date, not a single method of psychological assistance has been developed and not a single medicinal combination of drugs has been found that is guaranteed to cure eating disorders forever. At the same time, there are evidence-based medicine methods that can put the patient into long-term remission.