The following is a summary of” Oxidative stress and inflammatory pathways in female eating disorders and borderline personality disorders with emotional dysregulation as linking factors with impulsivity and trauma,” published in the December 2023 issue of Psychoneuroendocrinology by Ruiz-Guerrero et al.

Eating disorders (ED) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are both conditions where people can’t control their emotions. They may share some biological causes that cause changes in oxidative and inflammatory processes. As of now, there have been no studies that look at the link between these diseases’ clinical traits, changes in inflammation, and childhood stress. For a study, researchers sought to find the possible general and disorder-specific inflammation pathways and look for possible links between dysregulated pathways and the symptoms. 

A total of 108 women (mean age: 27.17 years; standard deviation: 7.64 years) were studied.  They were split into 4 groups: 23 had restrictive ED (ED-R), 23 had bingeing/purging ED (ED-P), and 26 had BPD. The reference group had 23 healthy people. Several inflammatory and oxidative factors were studied, including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), TBARS, iNOS, COX2, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases, ERK mitogen-activated protein kinases, and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK). Anti-inflammatory antioxidants, such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and Kelch-like ECHassociated protein (Keap1), were also studied. Also, surveys about clinical behavior, instability, stress, and eating habits were given out. 

Principal component analysis was used to find three main inflammation and reactive components that explained 59.19% of the biomarker variation. It was found that people with BPD and ED have problems with inflammation and oxidative pathways.  This was shown by links with certain main components (P <.01). People with BPD had higher levels of a component that was made up of higher levels of JNK and lower levels of GPx and SOD. Instinctivity and ED-R were linked to a factor that included ERK activation and Keap1 inhibition. The part that involved blocking catalase and COX2 was linked to both types of ED and has been through stress. 

Several risk factors, including stress, instability, and eating disorder signs, were linked to some changes in inflammation, no matter what the diagnosis was. The results showed that a person who has been through stress and has an emotional dysregulation disease may have a certain endophenotype that is strongly linked to changes in inflammation.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030645302300361X