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Adolescent girls with anorexia nervosa have low bone mass, due in part to low levels of estrogen and insulin-like growth factor, but do low-weight adolescent girls without anorexia nervosa also have low bone mass? Investigators in Spain compared anthropometric measures, leptin levels, and growth hormone levels among three groups of white teenage girls (mean age, 19 years): 48 amenorrheic patients with anorexia nervosa (mean BMI, 16.13 kg/m2), 22 girls with low weight (BMI <18.5; mean BMI, 16.65) recruited from primary care who were eumenorrheic and did not display any symptoms of eating disorders during 5 years of follow-up, and 20 normal-weight eumenorrheic girls (BMI >18.5; mean BMI, 22.30).
Total bone-mineral density, BMD at the lumbar sp…