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What is Diabulimia?

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What is Diabulimia?

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The frightening world of eating disorders and distorted body images among young women has a new and potentially fatal entry, a condition known as diabulimia. Diabulimia is an extreme weight loss method which combines the natural side effects of juvenile diabetes with the unnatural compulsion known as bulimia or purging. Some young women diagnosed with Type 1 or “juvenile” diabetes are deliberately withholding their daily shots of insulin in order to induce more rapid weight loss. Combined with other extreme eating practices such as binging and purging, the practice can become a life-threatening eating disorder. Diabulimia is not recognized as an official eating disorder as of mid-2007, but many experts on juvenile diabetes have been aware of this dangerous practice for years. Those who practice diabulimia as a means of weight control are often able to disguise their habit from others by blaming it all on the natural side effects of the disease. Many Type 1 diabetics are naturally thin

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That night I searched for the term “diabulimia” on pubmed.gov, but nothing came up. When I entered the term into a search engine, however, I got multiple hits for diabulimia chat rooms and blogs. The conversations shocked me: “I have to lose 15 pounds in two weeks to fit into a prom dress. I know I can do it as long as I skip the insulin,” wrote one 16-year-old. Diabulimia is an eating disorder in which people with type 1 diabetes deliberately give themselves less insulin than they need for the purpose of weight loss. When insulin is omitted, calories are purged through the loss of glucose in the urine. Individuals with diabulimia manipulate insulin as an inappropriate behavior to prevent weight gain. This is one of the criteria of bulimia nervosa.1 Clinicians have not defined the frequency and duration of insulin omission and many do not recognize this dual condition as a disorder. Some propose the following definition: an insulin reduction at least twice a week or of over one quarter

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