Posts by Jennifer J. Thomas, PhD
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Cholecystokinin Elevation Observed in Youth With Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
Massachusetts General Hospital researchers found that in patients with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, ages 10 to 23, levels of the satiety hormone cholecystokinin were nearly three-fold higher than in controls. Still, there were no associations between cholecystokinin and subjective measures of appetite.
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Restrictive Eating Linked to Increased Likelihood of Suicidal Ideation
Restrictive eating, but not binge eating or purging, predicted suicidal ideation in adolescent and young adult females with low-weight eating disorders.
Biography
Dr. Thomas is the Co-Director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program (EDCRP) at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Thomas’s research focuses on atypical eating disorders, as described in her co-authored books Almost Anorexic: Is My (or My Loved One’s) Relationship with Food a Problem? and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: Children, Adolescents, and Adults. She is currently principal investigator on several studies investigating the neurobiology and treatment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health and private foundations. She is the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific publications, Director of Annual Meetings for the Academy for Eating Disorders, and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders. She provides cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for patients at the EDCRP and has supervised numerous doctoral students, pre-doctoral interns, psychiatry residents, psychiatry fellows, and junior faculty in the provision of CBT for eating disorders over the past 10 years. She provides psychotherapy trainings locally, nationally, and internationally, and is the primary faculty speaker for the CBT section of the MGH Psychiatry Academy course on Evidence-Based Psychological Treatment of Eating Disorders.
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