Progressing our understanding of the impacts of nutrition on the brain and behaviour in anorexia nervosa: a tyrosine case study example

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Hart, Melissa
Sibbritt, David
Williams, Lauren T
Nunn, Kenneth P
Wilcken, Bridget
Griffith University Author(s)
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2021
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Abstract

Anorexia nervosa is a severe and complex illness associated with a lack of efficacious treatment. The effects of nutrition on the brain and behaviour is of particular interest, though an area of limited research. Tyrosine, a non-essential amino acid, is a precursor to the catecholamines dopamine, noradrenaline and adrenaline. Ongoing tyrosine administration has been proposed as an adjunct treatment through increasing blood tyrosine sufficiently to facilitate brain catecholamine synthesis. The effects of tyrosine supplementation in adolescents with anorexia nervosa remain to be tested. This study had approval from the Hunter New England Human Research Ethics Committee (06/05/24/3.06). We aimed to explore the pharmacokinetics of tyrosine loading in adolescents with anorexia nervosa (n = 2) and healthy peers (n = 2). The first stage of the study explored the pharmacological response to a single, oral tyrosine load in adolescents (aged 12-15 years) with anorexia nervosa and healthy peers. Participants with anorexia nervosa then continued tyrosine twice daily for 12 weeks. There were no measured side effects. Peak tyrosine levels occurred at approximately two to three hours and approached baseline levels by eight hours. Variation in blood tyrosine response was observed and warrants further exploration, along with potential effects of continued tyrosine administration in anorexia nervosa.

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Journal of Eating Disorders

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9

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1

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© The Author(s). 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

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Subject

Nutrition and dietetics

Psychology

Health sciences

Anorexia nervosa

Noradrenaline

Pharmacology

Tyrosine, case study

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Hart, M; Sibbritt, D; Williams, LT; Nunn, KP; Wilcken, B, Progressing our understanding of the impacts of nutrition on the brain and behaviour in anorexia nervosa: a tyrosine case study example, Journal of Eating Disorders, 2021, 9 (1), pp. 86

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