Stephanie Lindblad and Professor Beverly Roeder, Biology
Anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders that are extremely harmful and difficult to accurately diagnose. Currently the most frequent methods of diagnosis are subjective interviews and questionnaires. One example of these psychological diagnostic tools is the DSM-IV test, which has some serious problems associated with it. It relies heavily on self-report of patients, which subjects the results to dishonesty. The test is also unable to classify certain patients that do not meet specified characteristics. In addition, the DSM-IV has very limited physiological measures, such as BMI and menstrual status. Thus, the physiological consequences of anorexia and bulimia, including a feedback loop that potentially promotes the disorders, are overlooked. Of equal importance is the fact that DSM-IV provides no parameters for monitoring treatment and recovery1. It is clear that the psychological methods of eating disorder diagnosis are failing to meet the needs of sufferers.
As a solution to this problem physiological measures should be used to diagnose eating disorders. I am part of a large project currently underway that suggests that there are several physiological parameters that could be examined to improve the detection of eating disorders. Thanks to the ORCA grant that I have received, my mentor, fellow students, and I have been able to pursue the study of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios in leg hair as an effective means of eating disorder diagnosis. It is expected that the stable isotope ratios in leg hair will be able to distinguish women with an eating disorder from those that are healthy. Although this is the first study using leg hair, there is a precedent set using hair from the head as a successful diagnostic tool. Two years ago Dr. Kent Hatch, along with several other researchers, developed an objective method of diagnosing eating disorders through stable isotope analysis of individuals’ hairs taken from the scalp2. Because it has been proven that hair from the head can accurately diagnose eating disorders, we hypothesize that leg hair analysis will serve the same purpose. The expected benefit of using hair from the legs instead of the head is that the rate of growth for leg hair is much faster. This means that leg hair from a span of three days could be analyzed instead of hair from the scalp representing a month. A shorter period of time provides a finer scope of approach to discovering what the individual has been eating. . In addition, the ease with which leg hair may be collected will allow future supervision of the eating disorder as the patient undergoes treatment.
This study involves the comparison of female student athletes from the BYU track and cross-country teams and healthy individuals. The reason for including female athletes in this study is that there is a good possibility that many of these women have eating disorders. Another reason for having samples from the female athletes is that we want to see how broadly applicable this method is. Leg shavings, along with hair strands and nail clippings, were collected from these women throughout 2007 and 2008. The athletes were also assessed by completing questionnaires about their eating habits. Samples were collected from healthy students that participated as controls in the study. Each participant was assigned a unique identification number and asked to shave every three days. Samples were labeled by identification number and date, and then collected by members of our research lab.
The long process of preparing the data for analysis began in May 2008. I started by grouping the leg hair samples according to identification number and putting them in chronological order. To keep everything organized I generated spreadsheets that accounted for each sample and allowed me to monitor the progress of the project overall. Once all the samples were accounted for and categorized, I transferred the hair from the razors to filter paper. Each sample was enclosed in its own filter paper and then washed for thirty minutes in a sonicator filled with distilled water. The samples dried over night, and then were sonicated again in petroleum ether. Once all of the samples had been sonicated both times, they were ready to be prepped for the mass spectrometer. Each sample of leg hair was carefully weighed and placed in a tiny tin capsule. After being cautiously folded, each tin capsule was put in a tray. Every well in the tray was labeled with the sample’s identification number and weight. Once all the samples were folded in tin capsules and placed in the trays, they were finally ready to be run through the mass spectrometer.
The samples were ready to be run through the mass spectrometer by about mid-October, but the process was delayed a bit due to problems with the machine. Within a few weeks the mass spectrometer was fixed and the process of running the samples was underway. The money from the grant went in large part to this aspect of the project, seeing as it is quite expensive. I believe that by now all the samples have been run, and therefore all that remains to be done is the analysis. The data collected from the mass spectrometer will be analyzed by Dr. Dennis Egett of the Statistics department to determine if there is a significant difference between the leg hairs of the controls and the athletes. The results of the analysis will hopefully be completed within the next couple of months.
Once we have all the results gathered, we will be able to finish writing and editing the paper. I am currently working on revising the introduction and writing the materials and methods section. The findings from the mass spectrometer analysis will allow us to write the results, discussion, and conclusion sections. When the paper is complete we will work together as a team to edit and revise it before submitting it for publication. We hope to have it ready for submission by early this summer, perhaps around May.
Working on this research throughout the past year has been a very enlightening experience. I have learned that research requires patience, and it is often tedious and seldom glamorous. However, I am confident that when all is said and done, and we have a published paper, the effort will have been well worth it. Thank you again to the ORCA committee for giving me this grant and allowing me to have this opportunity. I am sure it is something that will impact me for years to come.
References
- Hatch et al. (2007). Towards a physiologically based diagnosis of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics 7: 845-857.
- Hatch et al. (2006). An objective means of diagnosing anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa using 15N/14N and 13C/12C ratios in hair. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 20: 3367-3373.