“Frontotemporal dementia is associated with a wide variety of abnormal eating behaviors such as hyperphagia, fixations on one kind of food, even ingestion of inanimate objects,” a paper on the topic reads.
Those with the condition may refuse to eat anything other than one food ― for instance, the paper referenced a “banana lady,” who ate nothing but bananas and drank nothing but milk for months before her death.
After an autopsy, it was found that she had frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
Those with the condition may also eat non-food objects and steal food from other people’s plates.
“These behaviors are problematic, of course, socially, but also with regard to patients’ health as they tend to gain weight,” says SISSA researcher, Marilena Aiello, who was involved in a systemic review of FTD, “even if individual consequences are different.”
However, “some people lose weight because they eat a narrow range of foods in an obsessive way,” the researcher says.
Why does this happen?
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/aglover/eating-habits-dementia-signs
