Endocrine Activity in Anorexia Nervosa

The clinical aspects of anorexia nervosa are now well recognised but it is only in recent years that the endocrine dysfunction associated with the disease has been investigated. From a series of 24 cases recorded elsewhere (1) 9 patients (8 females and 1 male) were selected for the present study in whom the disease had persisted without remission for a minimum of five years. Only 2 patients (females) who had recovered from anorexia nervosa could be persuaded to come into hospital to act as controls; these are referred to in the text as “the recoveries.” The clinical details1 of these 11 cases are presented in Table 1.