Trial reportThe Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine2019
Impact of Adrenal Hormone Supplementation on Bone Geometry in Growing Teens With Anorexia Nervosa.
Trial report in The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- 2025 Update to the Female Athlete Triad Coalition Consensus Statement Part 2: Clinical Guidelines for Screening, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Return to Play for Adolescents and Adults.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Guideline
- Medication for bone loss in female patients with anorexia nervosa: a systematic review and management algorithm.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2025Pooled it
- Anorexia nervosa and adrenal hormones: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of endocrinology · 2023Pooled it
- Effect of Transdermal Estradiol and Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 on Bone Endpoints of Young Women With Anorexia Nervosa.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2021Trial
- Therapeutic approaches for endocrine dysregulation in anorexia nervosa in adolescents.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- Hormonal Contraception and Bone Metabolism: Emerging Evidence from a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Studies on Post-Pubertal and Reproductive-Age Women.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Addressing Bone Health in Adolescents With Anorexia Nervosa-No Bones About It.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in anorexia nervosa; an underestimated endocrine dysfunction among adolescents.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Review
- Endocrine complications of anorexia nervosa.Journal of eating disorders · 2023Review
- Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea: Impact on bone and neuropsychiatric outcomes.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Review
- Pharmacotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of anorexia nervosa - too much for one drug?Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeAdolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) have decreased dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and estrogen concentrations that may contribute to skeletal deficits. We sought to determine whether DHEA + estrogen replacement (ERT) prevented bone loss in young adolescents with AN.
methodsWe recruited females with AN (n = 70, ages 11-18 years) into a 12-month, randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Participants were randomized to oral micronized DHEA 50 mg + 20 mcg ethinyl estradiol/.1 mg levonorgestrel daily (n = 35) or placebo (n = 35). Outcomes included serial measures of bone mineral density (BMD) by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (total body, hip, spine) and peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT; tibia). Magnetic resonance imaging of T1-weighted images of the left knee determined physeal status (open/closed).
resultsSixty-two subjects completed the trial. Physeal closure status was the strongest predictor of aBMD changes. Among girls with open physes, those who received DHEA + ERT showed a decline in BMD Z-scores compared with those receiving placebo, whereas there was no effect in those with at least one closed physis. Treatment did not affect any pQCT measures, regardless of physeal closure status.
conclusionsCombined DHEA + ERT did not significantly improve dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry or pQCT BMD measurements in young adolescent girls with AN, in contrast to an earlier trial showing benefit in older adolescents and young women. In girls with open physes, the mean change in the placebo arm was greater than that of the DHEA + ERT group. We conclude that DHEA + ERT is ineffective for preserving bone health in growing young adolescents with AN at the dose and route of administration described in this report.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.