Today’s Topic: Autophagia
On Mental Health Friday, we post, in alphabetical order, one per week, information on mental health disorders. Mental Health Friday is for informational purposes only, and is in no way meant to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Please do not self diagnose and seek professional help for what ails you.
Autophagia (eating one’s own body) is not classified as a mental disorder or a symptom of a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM), the diagnostic manual used in the United States. However, autophagia could be classified under the DSM’s section “Impulse-control disorders not elsewhere classified”. Impulse-control disorders involve failing to resist an impulse, drive, or temptation to perform an act that is harmful to the person or to others. The majority of individuals affected by this disorder will often feel a sense of tension or arousal before committing the act, and then experience pleasure, gratification or relief at the time of committing the act. Once the act has been completed, the individual may or may not feel regret, self-reproach, or guilt.[1]
Autophagia occurs when one is compelled to inflict pain upon oneself by biting and/or devouring portions of one’s body. It is sometimes seen with schizophrenia,[2] psychosisand Lesch–Nyhan syndrome.[3]
Similar behavior has been observed in laboratory rats in experiments looking at spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries. The resulting behavior consists of the rats licking and then chewing their nails, and the tips of their toes. In extreme cases, the rats will chew off whole toes or even the foot.[4][5] In order to get rid of this behavior, researchers applied a series of evaporative, bitter-tasting mixtures (combination of metronidazole and New Skin) on the rat’s limb because most animals avoid chewing anything with a bitter taste. After testing this mixture on 24 rats with spinal cord injuries, only one rat had chewed its toes after a two- to three-week period.[6]
People who experience command hallucinations (often associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) are most prone to self-mutilation, including the biting or eating one’s own flesh. More examples of people who are very susceptible to severe self-mutilation like autophagia are ones with religious preoccupations, history of substance abuse, and intense social isolation. [7]