Diabetes and Eating Disorders

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Permalink Reply by Kristin on September 27, 2009 at 6:15pm

There is a great blog by one of our members, Lee Ann, called The Butter Compartment. You may find lots of resources there on diabulimia (click here) and eating disorders (click here)

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Permalink Reply by Aaron Nolan on September 27, 2009 at 8:04pm

I was emcee at the New Zealand Diabetes Youth conference last month which had two speakers on this topic. Go to http://www.diabetesyouth.org.nz/files/DYConf09-13May09.pdf and their names will be list on that. From there you can do a search on contacting them. If you get stuck then let me know and i'd be happy to help out.

Aaron

www.beingdiabetic.co.nz

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Permalink Reply by Sheila Green on September 28, 2009 at 7:44am

Yes it is HUGE. I have had type 1 for 55 years. When I was a teenager and into my 20's and 30's I had discovered that if I kept my BG's high I would dehydrate and actually loose weight. There was no home-meter testing in those days and I was raised to believe that "diabetes was a condition where you HAD to eat". You had to eat at least 6 times a day - three full meals and three snacks a day. I am sure I developed an eating disorder. I knew my blood sugars were high when I was always thirsty and had to urinate all the time. I soon discovered that the more I urinated the more weight I lost. I wanted to be slim. After gaining almost 60 lbs in my first pregnancy ( I was very careful with my carbs during that time) I then went back into not watching my carbs and eating anything and everything, and I lost all the weight. I used to feel awful - but it was worth it to maintain my 120 lbs weight. ( I am 5ft 6ins.). A lot of type 1's are slim, hopefully because they watch their diet and not because they are hyperglycemic and over-stressing their kidneys. If you need more information, please let me know..
Sheila

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Hughes on September 28, 2009 at 8:58am

Well, her is my part. I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with my daughter, and was able to control it with diet. After that, I was hyperglycemic (low blood sugar). In 2002 I found out I had PCOS, and 2005 I was diagnosed with type 2. Then in 2007 I became a type 1. If you need any more info let me know.

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Permalink Reply by MelissaM on September 28, 2009 at 12:04pm

I had a neighbor that had Type 1 who was diagnosed at the age of 15 I think it was. She didn't take the news well and ended up dying from a combination of the eating disorders that she had and the complications to her diabetes. I'll never forget how she looked before she died. she was only like 19 or 20.

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Permalink Reply by Ken McDade on September 28, 2009 at 12:35pm

I would actually be interested in seeing a paper on Diabetes and addiction as a whole. Eating disorders and addictions are all such a small number but when you combine them all into one topic, it is a much larger number and I think that you could maybe even present a more complete thesis on the topics

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Permalink Reply by Kristin on September 28, 2009 at 1:08pm

Once I attended a lecture on eating disorders (nothing related to diabetes), when the lecturer listed the ways to notice if someone has an eating disorder (counts what they eat, is obsessed with food, thinks about food all the time), I actually felt like many of the signs were things that I actually did because of diabetes.

It's strange how eating consumes so much more of my thought and time than it did before...

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Permalink Reply by Jim Wright on September 28, 2009 at 6:11pm

Yeah, I don't think the some of the usual indicators really count here...

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Permalink Reply by Lee Ann on September 28, 2009 at 2:48pm

Thanks for the shout-out, Kristin! :)

There have been quite a few papers written over the years, but the bulk of them have been in professional diabetes journals. Sorry, but I can't tell how old you are, Laura - is this a research paper for college, high school? Some articles can be found in full print versions online, but for others, you'll likely only find abstracts unless you have access to a university library that carries subscriptions to those journals. Coincidentally enough, I got the latest issue of Diabetes Spectrum in the mail this afternoon, and the issue is on eating disorders. I'm looking forward to reading it, and plan to write at least one post for the blog, depending on what I find. If I can ever get today's post finished and posted, it's on ED's too, although it's just a personal thing - I'm not referencing any research or anything.

I'd say at this point, research has shown some convincing correlation between ED's and D, although there is some conflicting research even on that. Mortality for diabetics with ED's is certainly higher than it is amongst non-diabetics though, which is really not a big surprise. Similarly, complications amongst eating disordered diabetics are more common and happen earlier compared to non-eating disordered diabetic peers. The real research void at this juncture is that of effective treatment protocols. It's starting to be done, but a handful of studies on that doesn't add up to much. It'll be quite a few years before there's a substantive body of research on treating the problem.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Woon on September 28, 2009 at 4:27pm

Hi, thanks for all the replies its been really helpful. I'm in a pre-health type college program so this if for that. My school is pretty small so I might have to go elsewhere to find some of the journals you mentioned. by the way I love that your blog is called the butter compartment, my refrigerator looks exactly the same.

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Bruggink on September 28, 2009 at 5:02pm

Hi Laura - I'm a Type 1 who had an eating disorder for many, many years, and though, as LeAnn noted, the figures vary, I've read that teenage female T1s are twice as likely as their non-diabetic peers to develop eating disorders. (One such study is available here: http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/15/2/83.full) It *is* hard to parse out the attention to food we need to be healthy w/D and that which is eating disordered - and I think that's a major factor putting diabetics at greater risk, along with the feeling of not being in full control of one's body. But those are just my thoughts...

You may not be able to find these articles without going online or to a med school library, but I think they'd also be helpful:

Anderson AJ, Goebel-Fabbri AE, Jacobson AM. Behavioral research and psychological issues in diabetes. Joslin’s Diabetes Mellitus, 14th Edition. Kahn CR, Weir GC, King GL, Jacobson AM, Moses AC, Smith RJ (eds). Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, pp.633-648, 2005.

Goebel-Fabbri AE, Fikkan JL, Connell A, Vangsness L, Anderson BJ. Identification and treatment of eating disorders in women with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Treat Endocrinol 1:155-162, 2002.

Goebel-Fabbri AE, Fikkan JL, Vangsness L, Connell A, Ficken A, Anderson BJ. Binge eating, body mass index, and glycemic control in women with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes 50(Suppl 2):A392, 2001.

Best of luck with your project!

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Permalink Reply by Shipaddict on September 29, 2009 at 6:40am

Before I went on the insulin pump I would crave sugar, was always hungry and over ate a lot gaining 100 pounds. I went blind, had a heart attack and much more before I got on this pump. My biggest mistake was thinking I was hungry when in reality I was thirsty from having such high blood sugars. I was always so tired that I had to drop out of college because I could not make it from hall to hall...I would just fall over and had to be rushed to the hospital for saline drip IVs. So my over eating disorder has ceased since I got on my insulin pump yet when I go to the grocery store without a least I bring home 90% carbs from breads to cake to hummus. Then when I get home and look at what I brought home I have to turn around and take everything back to the store. The manager is a diabetic and never gives me a hassle about returning these itmens. Hope this helps.

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