UC-SD is looking for research participants

One of my next posts is going to be a love letter to the team at UC-San Diego.

Meanwhile, if you live on the west coast and would like to participate in a brain imaging study there, please consider doing it. The folks at UC-San Diego, under the direction of Walt Kaye, are doing some of the most important cutting-edge work on the neurobiology of eating disorders. This is your chance to help them out, get a scan of your brain, and make a little money. Details are below.


RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS WANTED
In conjunction with Dr. Walter Kaye and his research team, Dr Amanda Bischoff-Grethe is seeking female participants between 12 and 18 years of age who have a recent (within the last six months) diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa. Qualified participants will be asked to answer questions regarding their personality and cognitive abilities and will also undergo a 1.5 hour brain imaging study. By participating in this research study you may assist physicians and researchers in developing treatments for these complex and serious disorders. You may be compensated up to $175 dollars plus mileage. For more information, please contact the UCSD Eating Disorder Treatment and Research Program at edresearch@ucsd.edu or the Research Coordinator, Zoë Irvine, at 858-246-0699. We look forward to working with you!

Walt Kaye, M.D., believes in families

Dr. Kaye, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Eating Disorders Program at University of California-San Diego, is leading a team in one of the largest studies on eating disorders ever done. The study will include seven sites around the world and will compare two kinds of family therapy to explore the question of which kind of family therapy is best for which families.

Note to eating disorders therapists and programs: The question in this study isn't whether families should be part of e.d. recovery. It's how.

Patients will be assigned to one of two treatment types: systemic family therapy, which looks to improve relationships within the family as a means to recovery, and family-based treatment, also known as the Maudsley approach, which empowers the family to help the child recover.

One of the biggest perceived obstacles to Maudsley treatment is the notion that families have to be "perfect" in order to implement it. Well, that and the traditional notion that families cause eating disorders in the first place, and so cannot possibly be part of the solution.

The trouble is, traditional treatments stink. They condemn sufferers to years of semi-starvation, partial recovery, and inevitable relapse. So far, the Maudsley approach is the single most effective treatment for teens, with five-year recovery rates between 80 and 90 percent.

If a better treatment came along, I'd be the first to do the happy dance. What I can't stand is people who shoot down the notion of families being involved in treatment on general principle, or because it's always been done that way, or because they've always done it differently and can't make the leap to a new paradigm.

Children deserve the best treatment out there. Research shows that if someone with anorexia is ill for less than three years and then recovers, her chances of a lifetime free of this devastating illness are excellent. But those who've been chronically ill for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, are much less likely to ever really recover.

And that's simply wrong. Especially when there are tools that can help--like the family.

Anyone who's interested in being part of the UC-San Diego trial can call 858-366-2525 or e-mail edresearch@ucsd.edu.

6 lessons I learned at NEDA

1. There are lots and lots of well-meaning but ineffectual folks working in the eating disorders field.
2. There is lots and lots of Big Money at stake in the eating disorders field, mostly in the form of residential treatment centers.
3. There are lots and lots of politics in the eating disorders field.
4. Family-based treatment, which the scientific literature recognizes right now as the only evidence-based treatment with an 80 to 90 percent long-term success rate in adolescents, is perceived as controversial in the eating disorders field, even by some of those who profess to support and use it.
5. The most commonly heard comment about FBT at the conference: "Don't you have to be a very special family to make it work?"
6. The intensive outpatient family therapy for eating disorders program at University of California-San Diego, headed by Dr. Walter Kaye, looks absolutely wonderful.

I'm sure there are more, and I'm sure I'll be posting about them too.