Apple donates 1,000 Apple watches to the study on eating disorders



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Apple donates 1,000 Apple watches to a new study to track biological changes in people with eating disorders (via CNBC).

The University of North Carolina's BEGIN (or Binge Eating Genetics Initiative) study aims to better understand overeating disorders in which people consume large quantities of food in an uncontrolled manner over a short period of time. .



Bulimia nervosa is usually diagnosed in people who bleed their bodies or exercise excessively as a result of bulimia. The study will focus on 1,000 participants aged 18 or older who have previously suffered from binge eating or bulimia nervosa.

Each attendee will receive a free Apple Watch, offered by Apple, so researchers can monitor their heart rate to see if there are any spikes before binge eating episodes.

Registered participants will also register with a mobile application called Recovery Record, which they can use to record their thoughts and feelings, to share with a health professional before the session.

In addition, participants will receive tests to analyze their genetics and bodily bacteria to help researchers better understand the root causes of the disease.

"We need to collect data from a large number of people to see what they look like," said Cynthia Bulik, founding director of the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders and author of Binge Control: A compact recovery guide. "We want to know if he has a biological and behavioral signature."

In the end, the researchers hope that the data collected could help them predict episodes of binge eating disorder before they occur. Ideally, this could lead to a follow-up study in which participants received some sort of warning when they were at risk of binge eating.

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, at least 30 million people in the United States suffer from a eating disorder, but the field of research remains underfunded.

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