Anorexia is the most deadly mental illness, more deadly even than depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. Despite its lethal nature, the disease remains very poorly understood and drug treatments for it are nearly non-existent.

For as many as 90% of anorexia sufferers, the disease is curable by helping families to intervene more effectively in their children's lives by monitoring food consumption and exercise habits. "Often, parents may have to supervise their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to make sure they eat enough – as much as 4,000 calories a day to replace lost weight – and don’t exercise too much," one expert said.

The final 10%, however, who resist this formula are likely to starve to death.

There is currently no good data on any medications for treating anorexia – but some doctors are prescribing Zyprexa, an antipsychotic drug, when other interventions fail.

Off-label use of drugs is often the only option for doctors when they face poorly understood diseases like anorexia.

More research is clearly needed, and clinical trials are currently underway testing Zyprexa directly as an anorexia treatment. But the current furor over off-label pediatric antidepressant use illuminates the dilemma facing drug manufacturers, who may be unwilling to directly research cures for diseases like anorexia due to liability concerns and the public relations nightmare involved in directly marketing drugs for pediatric patients.