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Natural Cures for Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder where weight loss becomes an obsession and starvation begins to affect thinking patterns and personality. It occurs overwhelmingly among teenage girls and only in developed countries.

Physical symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa include wasting of the body and muscle tissue, impaired sexual development and cessation of menstruation, drying and yellowing of the skin, loss of texture of the hair, pain to the touch, lowered blood pressure and metabolic weight, anemia, and severe sleep disturbances.

Mental symptoms include the patient still seeing herself as fat, having a preoccupation with death, and a frantic need for exercise to keep physically fit. Patients are often manipulative, trying always to be the center of attention, and may become socially isolated.

In both Anorexia Nervosa and bulimia nervosa, the underlying causative factors are commonly believed to be solely due to an obsession with body fat, a fear of being (or becoming) fat, or over-concern with perfectionism. Although all of these factors are important, recent research also shows that in most cases an underlying zinc deficiency may contribute to the both disorders.

Pharmaceutical drugs such as antidepressants are commonly prescribed to treat Anorexia may actually aggravate the situation. Not only do they have side effects such as agitation, insomnia, anxiety and nausea, they are causing the body to be overloaded with chemicals that the body has to process.

There are natural cures for anorexia that do not involve consuming pharmacological agents. They involve restoring the biochemical balance of the body, and making lifestyle changes that will give the anorexia sufferer the mental and emotional tools to deal with life in general. There are also many alternative therapies that are designed to restore one's mental and spiritual balance.