Eating Disorders Hitting Women Over 50, Study Finds

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago THURSDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Although eating disorders are typically thought of as a problem among teenage girls, many women over 50 practice unhealthy eating behaviors, a new study indicates.

The researchers found that almost 4 percent report binge eating, nearly 8 percent report purging, more than 70 percent diet to lose weight and 62 percent say their weight or shape adversely impacts their lives, according to the report published June 21 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

"Everyone -- especially health-care providers -- needs to erase stereotypes about who experiences disordered eating. Women well into their 50s and beyond still report struggling with weight dissatisfaction and a palette of unhealthy behaviors aimed at weight control," said lead researcher Cynthia Bulik, director of the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program.

"Our '70 is the new 50' society may be placing additional appearance pressures on women that perpetuate disordered eating practices well into older adulthood," she added.

These messages cause dissatisfaction and lead women toward extreme measures to achieve these "societally concocted ideals," Bulik said.

For the study, Bulik's team collected data on more than 1,800 U.S. women who took part in the Gender and Body Image Study.

Among these women, about 27 percent were obese, 29 percent were overweight, 42 percent were normal weight and 2 percent were underweight, the study authors noted.

About 8 percent of women said they purged in the last five years and 3.5 percent said they had binged in the past month, the investigators found. Most of these women were in their early 50s, but there were also women over 75, the authors said.

In addition, 36 percent of the women said they spent at least half their time in the last five years dieting, 41 percent said they checked their body size or shape daily and 40 percent weighed themselves at least twice a week.

Moreover, 62 percent said their weight or shape had a negative impact on their life, 79 percent said it affected their image of themselves and 64 percent said they thought about it daily.

Many women resorted to unhealthy ways to lose weight, including diet pills (7.5 percent), excessive exercise (7 percent), diuretics (2.5 percent), laxatives (2 percent) and vomiting (1 percent), the researchers found.

In all, 66 percent didn't like their overall appearance. Their dissatisfaction was highest with their stomach (84 percent) and shape (73 percent).

"We simply cannot ignore disordered eating and weight dissatisfaction in women over 50," Bulik said.

"But, we have no idea how to tailor interventions for women over 50 so treatment can be appropriate to their developmental stage in life. That is a critical next step," she said.

Eating disorders can have dire consequences, Bulik noted.

"Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. Although we do not have clear data on differences in mortality across the age spectrum, we do know that the body becomes less resilient to the physical insults from starvation, binge eating and purging as it ages. So these disorders in older women may lead to even more medical complications because the body bounces back less easily as it ages," she said.

Bulik said there are signs to look out for that may indicate someone has an eating disorder. These include: precipitous weight loss or low weight; withdrawing from family, partner and friends; evidence of binge eating or purging; extremely low self-esteem and body esteem; not eating with the family; avoiding events where there is food.

"Partners can be so helpful, but often do not know what to do. Inform yourself about eating disorders and don't expect the problem just to go away. These are not just passing phases, these are serious and potentially life-threatening disorders that require treatment," she said.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Edith Rubenstein, an attending psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said: "This is an unrecognized problem. It had been thought the problem was much smaller."

But, she added, "All of these weight and shape concerns are taking up a lot of mental space in women in this age group, surprisingly."

There is a growing older population of women who are heavier, which may be contributing to this anxiety about weight and shape, Rubenstein said. These are serious problems that need attention, she explained.

"If you have excessive concerns about weight and shape, if you are obsessing about weight and shape, if you are engaging in unhealthy behaviors like bingeing and purging, you should seek medical attention," Rubenstein advised.

More information

For more on eating disorders, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Role of fungus in digestive disorders explored

ScienceDaily (June 6, 2012) — Cedars-Sinai researchers say their examination of the fungi in the intestines suggests an important link between these microbes and inflammatory diseases such as ulcerative colitis.

See Also:Health & MedicineColitisGastrointestinal ProblemsCrohn's DiseasePlants & AnimalsFungusMicrobiologyMicrobes and MoreReferenceDiarrheaDigestionGallstoneConstipation

In the new study, published in the June 8 issue of Science, researchers at Cedars-Sinai's Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute identified and characterized the large community of fungi inhabiting the large intestine in a model of the disease.

The digestive tract is home to a large number of micro-organisms. In fact, with an estimated 100 trillion bacteria residing in the gut, microbes outnumber human cells in the body. Some are necessary to aid in digesting food, producing necessary vitamins and suppressing the growth of harmful microbes. Others are harmful to the body, contributing to illnesses such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and obesity.

Modern DNA-sequencing technology has revolutionized the study of these microbes in the last decade, allowing the role of bacteria in disease to be understood more clearly, as is shown in the Cedars-Science research published in Science.

"It's long been recognized that fungi must also exist in the gut, but we're among the first to investigate what types, how many, and whether they're important in disease," said David Underhill, PhD, associate professor and director of the Graduate Program in Biomedical Science and Translational Medicine, who led the study. "We were truly stunned to see just how common fungi are, identifying more than 100 different types" and seeing linkages to digestive disorders.

An estimated 1.4 million Americans have Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or IBD, a chronic digestive disorder, and about 30,000 new cases are diagnosed annually. Ulcerative colitis, one of the most common types of IBD, causes inflammation and ulcers in the top layers of the lining of the large intestine. Common symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, bleeding, fatigue, weight loss and loss of appetite. Ulcerative colitis patients can be at increased risk of developing colorectal cancer.

"This study takes us an important step closer to understanding how fungi contribute to disease, as well as significantly expanding our understanding of what types of fungi are living in our bodies," said Iliyan Iliev, PhD, a Cedars-Sinai research scientist and lead author on the study.

To determine fungi contribute to inflammatory disease, the study homed in on a protein called Dectin-1, produced by white blood cells and used by the immune system to detect and kill fungi. In an animal model of the disease, researchers found that the protein is important in protecting against inflammation caused by indigenous fungi. The finding has significant implications for human disease, as scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Genetics Institute found a variant of the gene for Dectin-1 that is strongly associated with severe forms of ulcerative colitis.

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Life Transitions May Trigger Eating Disorders

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- A lack of support following traumatic life events such as relationship problems, the loss of a loved one, abuse and sexual assault can trigger eating disorders, a small new study finds.

People with eating disorders said even changing schools or jobs could trigger eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia, according to the University of Minnesota researchers.

The study included 26 women and one man aged 17 to 64 (the median age was 27) who had suffered from eating disorders for an average of 20 years and were receiving treatment from a specialist outpatient clinic.

Nine of the patients had anorexia, three had bulimia, one had both, and the other 14 had eating disorders that did not meet the diagnostic criteria for any one specific condition.

The researchers identified six main factors that triggered eating disorders in these patients. They included:

School transition, such as starting junior high school or college. "Nobody knew who I was," one study participant said. "I was incredibly lonely with no support and I just stopped eating."Relationship changes, such as breaking up with a romantic partner or having parents split up. "I was so mad at my dad for choosing her over us.... I think that is when my eating disorder really began," one woman wrote about her father's new girlfriend.Death of a family member or close friend. One woman said her eating disorder began after the death of her sister in childhood. "I started to eat to compensate for feelings of anxiety," she said. Abuse, sexual assault or incest. "I thought if I gained weight that he would leave me alone or I could fight him back," one abuse survivor said.Changing homes or jobs.Illness or hospitalization.

The study appears in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

"The aim of our study was to find out if there was any link between transitional events in family life and the onset of eating disorders," lead author Jerica Berge, an assistant professor in the department of family medicine and community health, said in a journal news release.

"Eating disorders are an important public health issue and knowing what causes them can help us to develop more effective treatment and support," she said.

The study findings confirm that eating disorders can be caused by major life changes and lack of support in dealing with those events.

"We hope that our findings will be of interest to parents as well as health professionals as they underline the need for greater awareness and support at times of change and stress," Berge said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more about eating disorders.

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CDC Helps Educators Identify Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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