THE EFFECTS OF ANOREXIA NERVOSA ON MUSCULAR FORCE PRODUCTION

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychological disorder in which a person refuses food to the point of starvation. People with AN tend to have lower muscle mass and strength as a side effect of malnutrition. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare muscular strength over a long-term recovery period between simulated AN rats and healthy control rats. METHODS: A total of 30 Sprague Dawley (age =8 weeks) rats were used in this study. Half the rats served as the control group (CON, n=15), while the other half (AN, n=15) underwent 30 days of food restriction to simulate AN where food supply will be limited by 50-60%. Electric stimulation was used to assess muscular force production and time to peak force production in the gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior. Baseline measures were taken before inducing AN and directly after simulated AN. Data were compared between AN and CON with pre-planned T-test, significance was denoted at p0.05) or dorsiflexion between groups (AN ~ 0.3791 sec, CON ~ 0.3947 sec, p>0.05). CONCLUSION: AN group had lower force production in both the gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior compared to CON group. However, time to peak was not different between groups, suggesting muscle alterations during AN are driven by muscle alterations, not nerve transmission alterations.