[Hormonal adaptation to chronic self-starvation in patients with anorexia nervosa (author's transl)]

An intravenous glucose tolerance test (glucose 0.33 g/kg bodyweight) was performed in 35 women with chronic anorexia nervosa (AN) and in 19 age-matched women of normal weight. Plasma free fatty acids (FFA), immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and growth hormone (GH) levels were measured before and after the test. Although the mean value of glucose disappearance rate K was significantly reduced in the patient group as compared with the control group, K was in fact normal (greater than or equal to 1.10 +/- 10(-2)) in 20 anorectic women (AN 1) and lowered in 15 (AN 2). The basal and post-stimulation IRI levels were decreased in all anorectic women, but particularly in the AN 2 group with impaired glucose tolerance. The glucose load elicited a striking rise in GH in patients of the AN 2 group, a slight increase in those of the AN 1 group and no change in women of the control group. FFA values before the test were high mainly in the AN 2 patients but the difference with reference values did not reach statistical significance owing to the large s.e.m. After the glucose load there was a similar decrease in FFA levels in all three groups, but levels in the AN 2 group remained significantly higher than in the control group. Hyposecretion of IRI and hypersecretion of GH may account for the impaired glucose tolerance observed in all patients of the AN 2 group. Both hormonal changes facilitate neoglucogenesis and lipolysis, thereby providing the energy substrates required for survival of the self-starved subjects. The anorectic women also had low plasma T3 enabling adjustment of the oxidative metabolism to the reduced food supply.