Linguistic characteristics of patients with bulimic symptomatology in an online post-treatment program: An exploratory study

BACKGROUND: No former investigation has been performed related to the linguistic characteristics of patients with eating disorders using online synchronous communication mediums like chats. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the linguistic predictors of improvement in eating disorder-related attitudes, behaviours and emotional distress of patients with eating disorders. METHODS: Thirty-nine women, who had received treatment for bulimia nervosa or related eating disorders not otherwise specified, utilized the moderated therapeutic group chats of an Internet-based program for 4 months. The main themes of 134 session transcripts were created using a general inductive approach. The frequency of dictionary words in the text corpus was processed by the NooJ linguistic software. Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale were administered at the beginning and at the end of 4 months. No valid questionnaire data could be obtained from 11 participants, so the statistical analyses were performed in a sample of 28 subjects. RESULTS: According to the results of multiple linear regression analyses, higher ratio of words related to “family of origin” was associated with improvements in eating disorder-related attitudes, emotional distress, and reduction in the frequency of binge eating episodes (β = 0.73, p < 0.001; β = 0.67, p = 0.002; β = 0.53, p = 0.039, respectively). DISCUSSION: The expression of “family of origin” words following treatment termination was a linguistic predictor of improvement during group chat communication of patients with bulimic symptomatology. The results show the importance of family issues in enhancing the treatment outcome and provide preliminary evidence to address this topic during online chat moderation

Night Eating Syndrome Frequency in University Students: Association with Impulsivity, Depression, and Anxiety

Objective:The aim of this study was to examine frequency of night eating syndrome and its correlates with depression, anxiety, impulsivity and problematic eating behaviors in a university sample from Turkey

Heat treatment increases the incidence of alopecia areata in the C3H/HeJ mouse model

Alopecia areata (AA) is a common autoimmune disease characterized by non-scarring hair loss. Previous studies have demonstrated an association between AA and physiological/psychological stress. In this study, we investigated the effects of heat treatment, a physiological stress, on AA development in C3H/HeJ mice. Whereas this strain of mice are predisposed to AA at low incidence by 18 months of age, we observed a significant increase in the incidence of hair loss in heat-treated 8-month-old C3H/HeJ mice compared with sham-treated mice. Histological analysis detected mononuclear cell infiltration in anagen hair follicles, a characteristic of AA, in heat-treated mouse skin. As expected, increased expression of induced HSPA1A/B (formerly called HSP70i) was detected in skin samples from heat-treated mice. Importantly, increased HSPA1A/B expression was also detected in skin samples from C3H/HeJ mice that developed AA spontaneously. Our results suggest that induction of HSPA1A/B may precipitate the development of AA in C3H/HeJ mice. For future studies, the C3H/HeJ mice with heat treatment may prove a useful model to investigate stress response in AA