Eating Disorders Caught By A Hair
Doctors have long struggled to diagnose and treat eating disorders, in part because sufferers can be so secretive about their behavior. But just like looking at the rings can show events in the life of a tree, researchers from Brigham Young University have found that testing only a few strands of a person's hair can reveal changes in eating habits.
They use mass spectrometry to identify tiny differences in the weight of carbon and nitrogen isotopes. The changes occur in one isotope when people sharply reduce intake of foods like meat and milk, and in another, when the body actually begins to starve.
The test, which needs only five strands of hair, predicted with...[full transcript]
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