What is the nature of bulimia nervosa?

Although the term " nervous bulimia " was proposed by Gerald Russell in 1979, only recently did the researchers try to discover the cause of this "newfangled" disease, which no one had ever heard of before, because it simply did not exist.

What has so seriously affected human nature for such a short time? And is it possible to fight this unknown factor?

Nervous bulimia is a very unusual disease. Her group of risk is mostly girls 13-20 years old. Before the first description of the disease, made in 1979, those suffering from bulimia were often thought to be victims of anorexia, another nervous disorder associated with eating disorders. But if anorexia in humans dulls the feeling of hunger, then with bulimia nervosa, on the contrary, it is struck by sudden bouts of overeating. After them, the patient tends to induce vomiting to avoid excess weight, which is panically afraid. Even after repeated explanation by the doctor of the uselessness of this kind of procedures for fighting overweight, people suffering from bulimia continue to torment their bodies with these "exercises".

But this is not the worst thing. In some unfortunates, there appears to be a psychologically conditioned gastroesophageal reflux disease, when the stomach at an unconscious level throws out part of the swallowed food into the esophagus. Which, of course, affects the body, not accustomed to hydrochloric acid. Worst of all, a number of patients with bulimia begin to have more serious psychological and psychiatric problems, including suicide. All this happens despite the fact that the victims of bulimia usually did not exceed (or only slightly exceeded) their natural weight, characteristic of their physique. In other words, they were in perfect order. And suddenly...

J. Russell and colleagues conducted significant historical research in trying to establish the earliest cases. The findings were strange: it was not possible to detect any clear symptoms of bulimia until after the 1960s. That is, while anorexia is clearly traced from the Middle Ages, bulimia is not fixed at all by any sources. Construction of age-related pyramids of patients gave even more discouraging results: only people born after 1950 had at least some chance of getting sick; Serious, however, this probability became only with those born after 1958.

Ugly grimaces of time? Twiggy syndrome - so in the 1980s doctors described bulimia. Indeed, in 1966, the "Face of the Year" in Britain, the first supermodel of modernity became the first female cultural hero with such unnatural proportions. "Cane", as translated from her pseudonym from English, with an increase of 169 cm weighed 40 kg! The pressure exerted by images of unnaturally gracile supermodels on the psyche of the masses seriously affected the "popularity" of anorexia: according to statistics, the number of diseases it jumped up sharply from the second half of the 60's.

But Twiggy got off the podium in 1970, at the age of 20. Is it possible that the four-year "activity" of one teenager will forever be imprinted in the consciousness of the masses? Was Ilyich better for his four-year stay in power? No! No one, even the most faithful Leninist, for some reason shaves himself an artificial bald head.

In addition, there were other inconsistencies. It turned out that twins, one with bulimia between the ages of 13 and 20 (and this is the highest-risk group), the other will be afflicted with a disease with a probability of more than 70%. But the assumption of a genetic predisposition had to be postponed when it was discovered that this regularity only works when the twins were brought up together.

The strangest situation was revealed in the analysis of the country distribution. First, a number of countries throughout the known time had standards of female appearance, very close to Twiggy. This is, for example, Japan. Not least, this is due to the specific diet of the Japanese. Recall: according to measurements, until the 1970's in Japan (wrestlers sumo not considered), there were almost no cases of excess weight. But there was no bulimia, the first case of which was registered in 1981. Now, however, about 2% of local women aged 13-20 years are subject to this ailment. Obviously, the twiggy syndrome is not to blame: the Japanese are still inferior in terms of the "growth-mass" ratio to the Europeans, and many of them - and Twiggy at the peak of her fame in the 60's.

In recent studies, specialists from Oxford (UK) have suggested that earlier in studying the disease, the causes were confused with the investigation. It seems that not excessive food leads to induced artificial vomiting caused by sick people, but on the contrary - the loss of nutrients caused by such a dubious "cleansing" of the body from "extra" food leads to attacks of wolf appetite, which the body simply tries to normalize the situation. In other words, a person's real constitution is not connected in any way with his desire to "dump" weight by extreme methods.

In addition, if it was previously believed that the spread of bulimia is directly related to the economic development of the country, now this, apparently, can be forgotten. If you believe in medstatistics, after the appearance of television in the Fiji province of Nadroga-Navoza, the percentage of patients with bulimia among women from the age group of risk increased from zero in 1995 (before television) to 11.8% in 1998 (three years after the appearance).

A careful study of the statistics of third world countries led the experts to the conclusion that if the media of the state are English-speaking, then bulimia arises even in the poorest places, like the same islands of Fiji. And the higher the linguistic and cultural isolation of the population of a particular state or province, the less common is a similar phenomenon. For example, in Portugal, no study found anything greater than 0.3%, which is almost forty times lower than Fijian rates. And this despite the fact that per capita GDP in Fiji is five times less than Portuguese. The best example of cultural and linguistic isolation among countries with open medical statistics, British scientists recognized Cuba. There is not a single case of bulimia nervosa recorded, although even according to the CIA, there are more people here than in Fiji.

As the researchers explain, in fact, speech, most likely, is about a binding to the patterns inherent in the modern Anglo-American culture in general. And Twiggy is only a drop of water in which the Sun is reflected.