Symptoms

Anorexia is characterized by an unhealthy relationship with food and gaining weight.  Early symptoms of the disease reflect this relationship and include more psychological factors that can be difficult for friends and family to detect at first.  These symptoms include a strong fear of gaining weight, a driven desire to be thin, a distorted self perception characterized by low self esteem, and a preoccupation with food.  These symptoms contribute to the physical symptoms of low body weight, thin hair that breaks or falls out, lack of menstruation, fatigue, and dry or yellowish skin   As an anorexic person continues to starve his or her body of the nutrients it needs more serious complications develop.  The heart begins to lose muscle mass, the walls of the heart thin out and the chambers enlarge.  This causes a lower heart rate and blood pressure.  This means that not as much blood is being pumped out to the body’s other organs.  This can contribute to failure of the body’s organs.  Additionally the heart may also have an irregular rhythm, or a mitral valve prolapse (which means that the valve between the two left chambers doesn’t close completely.  Anorexia damages the heart during disease progression but many of these heart problems can persist even after a person receives treatment.  A person may still suffer from heart failure years after a successful recovery from Anorexia.  For more information on Anorexia’s effect on the heart click here.

Anorexia Diagram [online image]. Retrieved October 8 from http://ygraph.com/graphs/anorexiadiagram-20120605T004542-t8uynbc.jpeg

Bunch, T. Jared. (2015).  Anorexia's Hidden Toll: The Heart Fails.  Retrieved from http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/jared-bunch-rhythm-of-life/for-both-men-and-women-anorexia-nervosa-is-increasing-and-the-effects-on-the-heart-can-be-severe/