Crosby

Clinical Utility of Weight Suppression in Bulimia Nervosa Treatment – Part II

Jackie 5 Comments

In this post I will continue my discussion on weight suppression in bulimia nervosa (click here to read Part I). Just in case you happen to be reading the posts out of sequence, I will summarize the main points of that entry:

  1. Weight suppression is the difference between one’s current body weight and highest adult body weight.
  2. It has been found that individuals with BN are on average well below their highest historical weights (i.e. they are weight suppressed).
  3. Many studies have consistently found positive associations between WS and the onset and maintenance of BN symptoms.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEIGHT SUPPRESSION AND WEIGHT GAIN DURING BN TREATMENT

Because most individuals with BN have undergone significant weight loss, this makes them susceptible to weight regain — much like obese individuals usually regain the weight they have lost. Indeed, evidence suggests that weight suppression predicts weight gain in individuals with … Continue reading →

HW vs. CW: Weight Suppression in Bulimia Nervosa – Part I

Jackie 7 Comments

HW. CW. LW. GW1. GW2. GW3. UGW.

If you have (or have had) an eating disorder (or dieted and used online forums), chances are you know what those acronyms mean. And if you have browsed blogs written by eating disorder sufferers, chances are you have come across these acronyms too. After all, they are a prominent feature of many such blogs.

If you are lost, I’ll fill you in: the acronyms stand for Highest Weight, Current Weight, Lowest Weight, Goal Weight 1/2/3, and Ultimate Goal Weight (UGW). Unsurprisingly, most individuals with eating disorders, much like dieters, like to keep track of their weight loss — that is, the difference between the highest weight, HW, and the current weight, CW.

Researchers call this difference weight suppression (WS, more specifically, the highest adult body weight) and one’s current weight). It … Continue reading →

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Women with Bulimia Nervosa

Tetyana 6 Comments

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is 3-5 times more prevalent in individuals with bulimia nervosa (BN) than those without (Dansky et al., 1997). However, the relationship between PTSD and BN–in particular, how PTSD might affect or moderate bulimic symptoms–remains largely unexplored. In a recent study, Trisha Karr and colleagues followed 119 women (20 with PTSD and BN, and 99 with BN only) for a 2 week period to investigate whether participants with comorbid PTSD + BN differed from those with BN only on the:

  1. Levels of negative affect (negative emotional state/mood) and affect variability (fluctuation between negative and positive states)
  2. Frequency of bulimic behaviours
  3. Relationship between emotional states (negative or positive affect) and bulimic behaviours

They used the ecological momentary assessment (EMA) tool to track behaviours and emotional states close to when they occur. I’ve blogged about a study using EMA before (‘What’s The Point of Bingeing/Purging? And Why … Continue reading →

What's The Point of Bingeing and Purging? And Why Can't You Just Stop?

Tetyana 24 Comments

I defended my MSc on Tuesday and I’m not going to lie: I was pretty symptomatic with bulimia in the days prior to my defence. As I explained to my boyfriend: the anxiety-reducing effects of purging are so powerful, and the compulsion to binge and purge (when I’m stressed/anxious/”not okay”) is so strong that it is much easier to do it, get it over with, and continue working (in a much calmer state).

I’ve mentioned before, for me, purging is very anxiety-reducing and in some ways, almost a positive experience. It is so tightly coupled with bingeing that it is hard to separate the two, but the anxiety-reducing effects are strongest when I binge and purge, non-existent when I binge, and weak when I purge a normal meal (which is exceptionally rare/almost never.)

It turns out, of course, that I’m not alone.

Negative emotional states and stressors have long been … Continue reading →

Are There Any Meaningful Differences Between Subthreshold and Full Syndrome Anorexia Nervosa?

Tetyana 11 Comments

I see this on a daily basis: patients with subthreshold eating disorders feeling invalidated and “not sick enough.” They are struggling so much, but maybe they still have their periods, or maybe their weight isn’t quite low enough, and so they often (but not always, thankfully) get dismissed by doctors, other healthcare professionals, and insurance companies. Do you think you really need this treatment, maybe you can just focus on eating healthier? You know you are not fat, you are perfectly healthy! Just be happy! Or, Sorry, we can’t cover this psychological treatment because you don’t fit the full diagnostic criteria. 

Why do we draw a line between ‘threshold’ and ‘subthreshold’ at arbitrary numerical criteria?

No doubt numbers are important for medical treatment: someone with a very low BMI might have considerably more physical complications that need to be taken into account during treatment than someone with a not-so-low … Continue reading →

Personality Traits after Recovery from Eating Disorders: Do Anorexia and Bulimia Patients Differ?

Tetyana 4 Comments

When we think about eating disorders, we tend to think about eating disorder subtypes: anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating disorder. A lot of previous work has shown that individuals with AN and BN tend to be anxious, depressed, perfectionistic, and harm-avoidant. Patients with AN also tend to score low on novelty-seeking, impulsivity, and self-directedness, whereas patients with BN score high on novelty-seeking and impulsivity. More recently, however, some researchers began to wonder if there was another way to categorize patients–not according to symptoms, but according to personality traits?

They identified three clusters of personality subtypes that seemed to “cut across” eating disorder diagnoses, outlined below (taken from a previous post):

Three Personality Subtypes in Eating Disorder Patients:

  1. “dysregulated/undercontrolled pattern: characterized by emotional dysregulation and impulsivity”
  2. “constricted/overcontrolled pattern: characterized by emotional inhibition, cognitively sparse representations of self and others, and interpersonal avoidance”
  3. “high-functioning/perfectionist pattern: characterized
… Continue reading →

Over-Exercise is Associated With Suicidality in Individuals with Disordered Eating

Tetyana 6 Comments

Last week, I blogged about a study that examined personality traits and clinical variables associated with excessive exercise in eating disorder patients. In that study, 2 out of 5 participants engaged in excessive exercise. Today, I’m going to discuss a study that suggests over-exercise in disordered eating patients is associated with suicide behaviour.

Suicide rates in eating disorder patients are high. One meta-analysis suggested that out of all eating disorder related deaths, 1 in 5 are suicides. (Keep in mind, these numbers are really hard to pin down as they depend a lot on the sample population, sample size, and how the authors did their statistics, among other things.)

Another analysis found that the standardized mortality ratio (ratio of observed deaths in the study sample/expected deaths in the population of the same age but without the disease/disorder you are studying) for suicide in eating disorders was 31 for patients with … Continue reading →

Chronicity in Eating Disorders: How Do We Define It and What Do We Do About It?

Tetyana 5 Comments

It comes as no surprise that the earlier eating disordered individuals receive treatment, the higher the likelihood that they will make a full recovery. In other words, the duration of the illness is inversely proportional with the likelihood of full recovery.

The problem is that a lot of eating disorders are not caught early. That a lot of people don’t have access to the treatment they need. Insurance will not cover it, their doctors don’t think it is a problem or won’t treat it, or there is simply no space. And even if there is space, and insurance will  cover it, dropout rates are incredibly high and treatment success is meager. The end result? Sometimes it is a success story – a full or partial recovery. But other times, the stories make headlines across the world, and not for good reason.

So then, what can we do about … Continue reading →

A Case Against Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS)

Tetyana 7 Comments

This study is a follow up on the previous study (last entry) which examined the problems with the EDNOS classification, the frequency of transitions between eating disorders and how the DSM should be changed to reflect the clinical reality of eating disorders (and what is the clinical reality?)

In this study, Eddy and colleagues followed 246 women who were initially diagnosed with either AN or BN, for an average of 9 years. The main goal was to study the growing disparity between (1) the consensus that eating disorders are not stable overtime and how (2) the current diagnostic criteria which do not adequately address this, by following the clinical presentation of EDs overtime and providing suggestions for the upcoming DSM-V.

EDNOS is an often ignored category in research–in main part because it is difficult to study such a heterogeneous group. Nonetheless, Eddy et al. summarize some interesting findings … Continue reading →