Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Public Health

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Health, Human Performance and Recreation

Advisor/Mentor

Rosa-Caldwell, Megan

Committee Member

Murach, Kevin

Abstract

Background: Anorexia Nervosa is a psychological disorder characterized by the intentional refusal of food in the pursuit of being thin or skinny because of a fear of being overweight. These actions result in drastic loss in fat and skeletal muscle mass for the individual with the disorder which can cause a multitude of health complications that affect all areas of the body and account for over half of the deaths in patients with AN. This loss in skeletal muscle mass causes a decrease in the amount of force the skeletal muscle can produce which is one of the things this study is interested in. Previous rodent models have sought to observe and understand skeletal muscle loss during simulated AN as well as muscle recovery after AN, but no study has looked to understand how the metabolic functions within the muscle are affected during AN and how these functions related to the loss in skeletal muscle force production observed in patients with AN.

Purpose: The purpose of this study it to observe the metabolic processes in the skeletal muscle of AN simulated rats and how these processes related to the skeletal muscle’s loss of strength.

Methods: A total of 18 female Sprague Dawley (age =8 weeks) rats were used in this study. Half the rats served as the control group (CON, n=9), while the other half (AN, n=9) will underwent 30 days of food restriction to simulate AN where food supply was limited by ~50-60%. Electric stimulation was used to assess force production of gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior muscles. The rats were then euthanized and samples of muscle tissue from the gastrocnemius of each rat were assessed for oxygen consumption and various metabolic processes within the muscle.

Results: Directly after simulated AN, the AN group had lower measurements of muscular force max derivative for both plantarflexion (AN – 103396.73 mN*sec, CON- 126815.0 mN*sec, p< 0.05) and dorsiflexion (AN- 72414.47.66 mN*sec, CON- 10905.93 mN*sec, p< 0.05). However, the metabolic data retrieved from the Ouroboros yielded no significant difference between the AN and CON groups on measurements of oxygen consumption (p>0.05)

Discussion: With regard to the findings of the muscular force production tests, the results were consistent with our expectations, as well as previous AN research, in that the AN simulated rats demonstrated significantly lower measurements of force production immediately after the 30 day food restriction period. However, these force productions did not appear to relate to muscle mitochondrial oxygen consumption.

Keywords

Anorexia Nervosa; Muscle; Metabolism, Rats

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