Serum peripheral markers for inflammation in adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

Background: There is a limited number of studies comparing the levels of inflammation in adolescent patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and healthy controls based on complete blood count and platelet parameters.

Methods: This study is a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of 53 drug-naive patients with AN and 53 healthy controls.

Results: Significant differences were observed for WBC (white blood cell), neutrophil, MCV (mean corpuscular volume), MCH (mean corpuscular haemoglobin) and neutrophils/lymphocytes ratio (NLR) between the study groups. Patients with AN had lower WBC, neutrophiles and NLR values. But there was no difference between the groups in terms of inflammation-related platelet parameters. A strong positive correlation between BMI (body mass index) and PLT (platelet), PCT (plateletcrit) was determined in the patient group ( = 0.454,  = 0.001;  = 0.386,  = 0.007). Inflammation-related parameters may increase as BMI increases with nutrition and weight restoration.

Conclusions: The present study provides further evidence for level of inflammation in these patients does not increase during the acute period, unlike other mental diseases.