Preliminary evidence that gonadal hormones organize and activate disordered eating

Abstract

Findings suggest that lower levels of prenatal testosterone exposure and higher adult levels of estradiol are associated with increased eating disorder symptoms. We hypothesize that the relatively low level of testosterone before birth in females permits their brains to respond to estrogens at puberty, when the hormones activate the genes contributing to disordered eating in vulnerable girls.

An association of early puberty with disordered eating and anxiety in a population of undergraduate women and men

“…These steroid hormones could act through activational and/or organizational mechanisms on disordered eating behavior to produce differences between prepubertal and postpubertal individuals during the transition to reproductive maturity. In particular, estradiol correlates with both food intake (Gong et al, 1989;Lyons et al, 1989;Buffenstein et al, 1995;Dye & Blundell, 1997) and disordered eating symptoms (Lester et al, 2003;Klump et al, 2006;Edler et al, 2007), demonstrating an activational effect of steroids on eating behaviors. Thus, adolescent girls in a more advanced pubertal stage, with concomitantly higher levels of reproductive hormones, have higher levels of disordered eating than adolescent girls in a less advanced pubertal stage (Killen et al, , 1994(Killen et al, , 1996Koff & Rierdan, 1993;Kaltiala-Heino et al, 2001).…”

“…These increases in circulating steroids directly modulate psychology and behavior, including measures of eating behavior and anxiety. Circulating estrogen levels correlate with overall levels of disordered eating in women (Klump et al, 2006) and inhibit food intake in rodents (reviewed by Geary, 2001;Eckel, 2004). In addition, circulating steroids act organizationally on adolescent brain development, permanently altering psychological traits and behavior.…”

Anxiety, Sex-Linked Behaviors, and Digit Ratios (2D:4D)

“…However, such an association between 2D:4D ratio and trait anxiety is consistent with other research showing significant associations between digit ratio and sex-linked psychopathology. Masculine 2D:4D ratios and other related digit ratios, hypothesized to reflect greater perinatal androgen action, have been associated with male-typical disorders, such as autism and ADHD, (Manning et al, 2001;, whereas feminine digit ratios, hypothesized to reflect lower perinatal androgen action, have been associated with female-typical psychopathology, such as trait depression (Bailey & Hurd, 2005b) and eating disorder symptoms (Klump et al, 2006). A relationship between digit ratios and anxiety in men is also supported by previous research showing a positive association between 2D:4D ratio and what are often thought as precursors to anxiety in adulthood: anxious behavior in childhood and degree of neuroticism in adults (Fink et al, 2004).…”

“…The 2D:4D ratio has been studied in the context of reproductive success (Manning et al, 2000), sex-typed behavior (Csathó et al, 2003a), spatial/cognitive abilities (Csathó et al, 2003b;Kempel et al, 2005;Manning, 2002; but see Coolican & Peters, 2003), adult personality characteristics (Austin, Manning, McInroy, & Matthews, 2002;Bailey & Hurd, 2005a;Fink, Manning, & Neave, 2004), and more recently in the context of psychopathology (Arato, Frecska, Beck, An, & Kiss, 2004;Bailey & Hurd, 2005b;Klump et al, 2006;Manning, BaronCohen, Wheelwright, & Sanders, 2001;McFadden, Westhafer, Pasanen, Carlson, & Tucker, 2005;Walder, Andersson, McMillan, Breedlove, & Walker, 2006). Generally, digit ratios show positive correlations with female-typical behaviors and negative correlations with male-typical behaviors (for review, see Putz, Gaulin, Sporter, & McBurney, 2004), and this pattern of results appears to generalize to sex-linked psychopathology.…”

“…Recent research on eating disorders (Klump et al, 2006) and depression (Bailey & Hurd, 2005b, but see Martin, Manning, & Dowrick, 1999) suggests larger 2D:4D ratios may be associated with an increased risk for disorders that occur more frequently in females. Although anxiety disorders occur more often in women than in men (Pigott, 2003;Shear, Feske, & Greeno, 2000), to our knowledge no previous studies have reported the relation between digit ratios and adult levels of anxiety.…”