"Min Read   Deep brainstimulation device helped stabilise mood   Half of patients in small trial gained weight   Anorexia among most common psychiatric disorders in girls  By Kate Kelland  LONDON March  Reuters  Scientists have for the first time reported successful use of a brainstimulating implant to help patients with severe anorexia whose condition had not improved with other treatments.  Doctors implanted a device similar to a pacemaker in the brains of six severe anorexics and found at least half put on weight and showed improvements in mood. Under previous therapies none had shown progress.  This success in a small study designed as a pilot to test the safety of the technique suggests larger trials will confirm the effectiveness of the deep brain stimulation DBS device the researchers wrote in the medical journal The Lancet.  Anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder and is among the most common psychiatric disorders in girls aged between  and  years. Symptoms include deliberate weight loss induced and sustained by the patient and a need to control calorie intake and output.  Treatment usually focuses on changing behaviour but experts say up to  percent of patients get no benefit from such treatments and are at risk of dying prematurely.  Commenting on the results of this small trial Janet Treasure and Ulrike Schmidt of Kings College Londons Institute of Psychiatry said the technique looked promising and would give hope to patients with especially pernicious forms of anorexia.  Sponsored ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads  The fact that the procedure was associated ... with improvements in affective and obsessional symptoms is of key importance they said.  This will go some way towards reassuring patients that DBS is not just another treatment designed to fatten them up without making them feel better.  DBS is used to treat several neurological illnesses including Parkinsons disease and chronic pain. Scientists are also investigating its use in depression and epilepsy but this was the first time it had been used in patients with anorexia.  Implanting the DBS device requires minimally invasive surgery which can be completely reversed if problems occur the researchers said.  For their study a team at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre and University Health Network in Canada identified an area of the brain known to be important when using DBS in depression.  They implanted electrodes into the area and connected them to a pulse generator under the skin. The devices were activated  days later and researchers measured changes in the patients mood and anxiety to help find the correct level of stimulation.  The patients all women were aged between  and  and had had anorexia for between four and  years.  Initially all six lost weight but researchers said this was expected since studies of DBS in patients with depression also found a delay of a few months before treatment starts to work.  Three months after treatment the weight loss began to reverse in some patients and after nine months three patients weighed more than before treatment  the longest period of sustained weight increase since they had become ill. Around half also had better moods and less obsessivecompulsive behaviour. Land Rover Sponsored by Land Rover Land Rovers Main Event Enjoy Savings On Land Rover Discovery And Discovery Sport Read more   Andres Lozano who led the study said the results were encouraging because they pointed to a genuine therapeutic effect rather than a placebo or hungerincreasing effect.  He also said the improvements in mood and anxiety even in patients who were still underweight were especially striking given that severely anorexic patients did not respond well to conventional medicines or psychotherapies. Editing by Andrew Roche"