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@Miss_Mouse
It's been interesting to hear mixed reactions to the news that the 'anorexia gene' has now been identified. There's always been so much emphasis on the social/environmental causes of the illness (pushy parents, fashion industry, sexual abuse etc etc), knowing there's a defective gene that could play a much greater role, could be a game changer.
On the one hand, the more that is known about the biological basis of mental health conditions, the closer we are to developing effective prevention and treatment. My worry is that if too great an emphasis is placed on the genetics, patients and their families could become fatalistic or hopeless about recovery, and/or expect too much from the drugs developed to 'cure' the sufferers, when there are clearly so many other factors and high-risk personality traits involved. People love to think of nature and nurture as mutually exclusive when they're evidently not..