Thousands of Young Diabetic Women Suffer “Diabulimia,” Expert Estimates

Note from Connie: Usually, we only cover news and trrends here relating to sugar research, obesity or type 2 diabetes. But since both my research assistant/part-time writer Jennifer and I were particularly touched by this poignant story relating to women with type 1 diabetes, I decided to include this, too. Here’s Jennifer’s take on the subject, thanks to an AP story we both read:

What sad, scary news this is.

AP writer Jim Ellis reports on a condition called diabulimia, in which young women with type 1 diabetes skip their insulin to lose weight.

He leads with the unfortunate story of Lee Ann Thill, now 34, who learned of the practice at a camp for diabetic teenagers. She came to the camp suffering from bulimia, worried because she’d recently gained 20 pounds. So skipping or cutting back on her insulin shots, which causes diabetics to shed weight, seemed a perfect solution.

Fast forward a few years, to when Thill was 25. She’d had surgery because a blood vessel in her eye had burst (remember, eye trouble is just one of many complications diabetes can cause). When she was 28, Thill’s doctors diagnosed her with kidney damage, also a common complication of poorly-controlled diabetes.

Could Thill have avoided these problems if she’d taken proper care of her diabetes? She seems to think so.

"I feel strongly that had I taken care of myself, I could have lived as long as anyone without diabetes," she said in Ellis’s piece. "I don’t think that’s going to happen now."

How tragic for someone so young to feel so hopeless. What’s also disheartening is the possibility that her diabetes made her more susceptible to developing an eating disorder than she would have been had she not been diabetic.  (Several studies bear this out, including a 2002 study published in the Israeli medical journal Harefuah and one Diabetes Care published in 2004).

You see, Dr. Ann Goebel-Fabbri, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the famed Joslin Diabetes Center who does research on the connection between diabetes and eating disorders, theorizes that the vigilance diabetics need to have about food — watching their carb intake, adhering to a diet, etc. — can lead to an unhealthy relationship with it.

She estimates that 450,000 type 1 diabetic women, one-third of the total number of women with the disease, either skip or cut back on insulin to lose weight. But "diabulimics" who do this also suffer serious diabetic complications sooner than diabetics who take their insulin as they should, Goebel-Fabbri told Ellis of the AP.

But what’s the solution to this problem? No responsible physician can counsel a diabetic not to carefully monitor what he or she eats because of the effects certain foods can have on blood sugar. Diabetics whose blood sugar is too high risk serious complications, too.

I can only shake my head in sadness at this.

From Jennifer Moore for the SUGAR SHOCK! Blog