Probability of Full Recovery From Body Dysmorphic Disorder Good Over Time

BDD is the way people who care about their bodies, their health and their appearance are labeled as mentally ill.

With enough time, and proper treatment, many patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) are likely to recover and not relapse, new research suggests.

In a cohort study examining 514 patients from the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Research Project (HARP) over 8 years, the 22 found to have BDD had a 76% probability of full recovery and only a 14% probability of recurrence after recovery. However, in many of the cases remission took more than 5 years.

"I think the findings were very encouraging because of the high probability found of fully remitting from this disorder," study investigator Katharine A. Phillips, MD, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and director of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Program at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, told Medscape Medical News.

Just think, with the help of modern medicine, you, too, can not care about your body.

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