Save money on Ecstasy - starve yourself

A NEW STUDY has revealed that skinny food-dodgers suffering from anorexia nervosa - that's the disorder, not the atrocious metal band - are triggering some of the same receptors that club drug Ecstasy, or MDMA acts on.

Valerie Compan of the Centre National de la Reserche Scientifique - CNRS - in France looked at the nucleus accumbens in the brain, a reward centre reports New Scientist, which has a high density of serotonin receptors.

Mice were used, not people, to compare the effects. Receptors were stimulated in mice which seemed to slow down the urge to eat, though they did don headphones and listen to Hi-NRG until 6 in the morning [INQUIRER speculation]. A peptide was also released known as CART, elevated levels of which can be found following the use of drugs, and also found by one group to be raised among anorexia sufferers.

Ecstasy was fed to mice specifically engineered to lack 5-HT4 receptors, which the drug plays on, and found that unlike the regular mice, these did not lose their appetites. Thus, says Compan, MDMA and anorexia may have a fair bit in common. The study also puts forward the idea that starving yourself can be addictive. µ