Physical assessment of patients with anorexia nervosa and depression

Anorexia nervosa(AN) is an eating disorder and often is combined with depressive symptoms. PURPOSE: To find the correlation between the degree of malnutrition and the degree of depression among patients with AN. MATERIAL and METHODS: We analyzed 38 patients with AN by anthropometric measurements, biomarkers, Beck`s depression inventory (BDI) and statistical methods. RESULTS: We measured the body composition of patients - 50% are with mild, 31.5% with moderate, 5,3% - with severe malnutrition, 13,2% - no malnutrition. From biomarkers - Lymphocytes, Transferrin, K+, BUN and 25-OH vit D were under the reference values. According the results of Beck`s test we found that all the patients with severe and extreme depression showed impaired biomarkers and anthropometric indicators. CONCLUSION: There is a significant relationship between the severity of depression and severity of malnutrition among patients with AN.