I've never heard of it . . . but I have a younger brother with type 1 Diabetes, so I know how incredibly dangerous it would be. Fucking hell.

I read this article yesterday and am glad you posted about it here too. I am a teacher and recently had a student, who I knew was diabetic anyway, pulled from school to go to an in-patient treatment center for an eating disorder. I am quite sure it was this "diabulimia". I like to think I am pretty close to my students and observant of them, but I had no idea she was suffering. I don't know much more information, but I'm glad that this is being recognized...I had no idea!

When I found out I was Diabetic about 5 years ago they warned me about this. They said a lot of Diabetics who were models that would keep their blood sugars high to lose weight.

But you also don't feel good when you have high blood sugar- despite the long term risks that you mentioned, you also are really thirsty because your body is trying to flush out the sugar. Then you have to pee a lot...which is just annoying.

But I'll admit, there's times I've been tempted to let my blood sugar just run high. But it's not worth what the consequences would be.

This is a hard thing to even write down... nobody ever told me it was a disorder... I have done this for many years... I am an insulin dependent diabetic and just figured out on my own that if I reduced my total insulin intake I would lose weight... the other side to this is also eating a cookie or candybar to raise blood sugar when it is in a normal range (I have even eaten my glucose gel to bring normal blood sugar up to weight loss levels). I have known for a long time that it is not healthy, but if I take my insulin because I feel like a "bad diabetic" if I dont... then I feel myself getting fatter by the moment. My doctor is always curious why I am on SOOOO much insulin and yet I continue to have bad test scores, and he has asked me if I ever forget my insulin but he has never asked if I just plain don't take it... Which often times I dont... I am super concerned now... I really didnt know anyone else did this...

I think that you should probably talk to your doctor, Alison. Or maybe a therapist?

my sister is a diabetic who has always been worried about her appearance. She told me she sometimes thinks about doing it because it would be such an easy way to lose weight, to just let your sugar go a little too high... Frankly I don't know if I could always resist. It's a very scary thing.

Sadly, I don't think this is a new eating disorder, if they're just now naming it, or if the public is just now finding out about it. I am a juvenile diabetic and learned to do this when I was in 7th grade at a camp from another girl who was also in insulin. I was always afraid to do it for more than a few days or a week at a time, but when I did do it more than a few times from the ages 13-18 when I wanted to lose a few pounds really fast. Oddly, the older I got, the less it worked. I can admit to trying it once in my late 20's and gaining 3 lbs in 3 days. I've not tried it since (and in my 30's would be terrified to as I don't want to lose limbs, kidneys, vision, etc. when I'm older). I don't know if that had anything to do with my age, my diabetes, or because I felt so horrible that I didn't have energy to exercise or other things that I normally did on a daily basis. I was way too embarrassed to bring it up with my endocrinologist though.

Honestly, this is absolutely horrible--but not altogether that shocking. Insulin levels are not the only way lots of women try to lose weight and look 'beautiful.' Among my friends at UVA, I've heard about the misuse of adoral and even various thryoid medicines to hedge weight gain. It is sad that the desire to look 'beautiful' overpowers the desire to live a long, healthy life. Why isn't there more attention to recalibrating conceptions of what is healthy with conceptions of what is beautiful? The two are not mutually exclusive.

Sorry I don't know anything about this disorder but I just got really concerned for those who may have it and not know it. I just wanted to mention that there is quite a lot of info on the internet concerning this if you go searching.

As the daughter of a Type I diabetic mother who died young after a 30+ years of doing everything right to keep control of her blood sugar but still struggling, this terrifies me. I can't imagine the struggles of these teens - diabetes controls so much of their lives that I'm sure part of this has to do with them trying to have some control themselves. Unfortunately, the consequences are long-lasting and could very well come back to haunt them in 10-15 years, and shorten their lives.

On a related note, I have hypothyroidism and I've been surprised at how many people who also need to take thyroid medication have told me they use it as a weight loss aid as well. I don't think the stakes are quite as high as with diabetics, but these are the types of body image disorders that easily go unnoticed.

...sorry I just wanted to add that obviously talking to a doctor is best (and to a friend you trust for support).

When I was in 5th grade (1995) I read a book called, All the Days of Her Life by Lurlene McDaniels.

Here's part of the plot summary from Amazon -- "When [Lacey] returns to high school, she is driven to become a part of the in crowd and win the attention of gorgeous Todd Larson. But Lacey thinks fitting in means losing weight and hiding her diabetes. She starts skipping means and experimenting with her medication - sometimes ignoring it all together."

Not all that new, unfortunately.

I'm a medical student, so I'll confirm that endocrinologists are pretty aware of this. Our lectures on diabetes were from an older male doctor, and he mentioned it as something to look out for, especially in younger female patients.

So if you're thinking of talking to your doctor about it, my sense is that there's a good chance you won't be the first patient she or he has seen with this concern.

I was in treatment with several diabetic women who used their insulin as a means to lose/control weight. This practice is certainly not new, and looking back, the most alarming thing is that many of us not struggling with diabetes as well as an eating disorder were envious of what we perceived to be an advantage these women had over us. Fortunately many years of recovery have shown me how skewed this thinking was, but it saddens me to know how many people can identify with those thoughts.

I am wondering if labeling this as a disorder and using ‘medical’ terms such as diabulimia is really helping women. The focus shifts from being one of societal violence against women to an individual problem that must be dealt with professionally (by the sexist and queerphobic medical industry).

Of course this debate was probably already had by feminists when anorexia and bulimia were first being labeled.

Good point about the labeling.

Skimping on insulin to lose weight isn't new.

I'd say that skipping insulin is effectively just purging--all the calories that you ordinarily would have absorbed get shed because there's not enough insulin to get them into the cells.

So, if someone does this often enough, it's just another potential sign of ordinary bulimia, along with vomiting, laxatives, over-exercise, etc.

I am very happy to learn that this behaviour has been identified and broadcasted. Two years ago my ex learned that he has diabetes. Since then, he has been manipulating his sugar and insulin levels so that he can lose fat and gain weight. Because he has a strong background in biology and physiology he feels he can "safely" do this. Regardless of whether or not he is being safe and health-conscious, I am still concerned about the fact that he is willing to risk his health for the sole purpose of looking a certain way. I had never heard of this before, so thank you for posting this link. I will be forwarding it to him.

Alison, I do think it was brave of you to admit that this is something you do....Perhaps you could bring this article with you when you talk to someone about it, as a way to show what helped you do that? I really hope you are able to stop, and probably talking to some kind of professional--a doctor, a therapist, a specialist of some kind--is the best way to go. I hope you're able to find a way to stop taking such risks with your health. I wish you the best of luck.

I just read about this today, too.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/06/17/diabetes.bulimia.ap/index.html

I work in endocrinology in a children's hospital, and this is not a new trend. Everyone on our diabetes team is very aware of these issues and many have researched and published on the relation between T1D and eating disorders. I think 'diabulimia' is just a new term the mainstream media has picked up on but most clinicians do not use (like the term 'diabesity').

When a child is developing diabetes, there is usually a period of weight loss before the diagnosis. If this happens to a young woman around the pre-teen/early teen years they often get positive comments from family and friends: You've lost your baby fat, etc. As soon as they're diagnosed and insulinized, the weight comes back--it wasn't a 'natural' weight loss in the first place. A friend of mine was diagnosed at age 14 and put on 40lbs in the 3 weeks after starting insulin. Putting on 40 (unwanted) lbs in 3 weeks would be distressing to most people, but to young women who had received compliments on their weight loss and are adjusting to a chronic, life-long disease, this is devestating.

And everytime it's time for insulin (2-5+ times/day) it's another mental battle between wanting to be healthy and wanting to be thin. Do I take my full dose, or do I take less, or do I 'forget' it altogether?

There's an excellent post on this at Junkfood Science:

But the popular dieting behaviors that can naturally physiologically lead to the eating disorders and dysfunctional relationships with food that’s ravaged the lives of countless numbers, are especially inescapable for diabetics. Managing their diabetes means they’re constantly focused on food and controlling their eating, which sets them up for clinical or subclinical eating disorders. Compound that with fears of being fat and the fact that good glycemic control is associated with weight gain, and it’s no wonder that growing numbers are resorting to such drastic measures to lose weight.