Anorexia nervosa in an elderly man

Abstract

Anorexia nervosa (AN) rarely develops after the age of 30 years, and rarely occurs in men. We report a case of chronic AN in a 72‐year‐old man, who reported a 20‐year history of extreme low body weight, persistent fears of obesity, and feelings of being fat even at 93 Ib. Also reported were episodes of self‐induced vomiting, laxative abuse, and excessive exercising. Patient's scores on a battery of questionnaires were also consistent with a diagnosis of AN. © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An audit of a British sample of death certificates in which anorexia nervosa is listed as a cause of death

“…They described a bimodal distribution of deaths from anorexia nervosa by age at death and postulated an old age variant of anorexia nervosa. Hewitt et al (2001) cited case reports of anorexia nervosa in the elderly (Gowers & Crisp, 1990;Hall & Driscoll, 1993;Riemann, McNally, & Meier, 1993) to support this hypothesis. Our findings, in terms of the distribution of age at death, are similar, but we were not persuaded by their argument for a late-onset or reemergent variant of anorexia nervosa.…”

Eating disorders in older women: Does late onset anorexia nervosa exist?

“…Only one patient (9%) had recovered from anorexia nervosa at the time of interview, and five (45%) stated they had never recovered from their first episode. Lifetime incidence of admission varied considerably between patients, and the modal number of admissions was one (SD [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

“…In 19 cases, it is suggested that the eating disorder developed after the age of 50 years. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] There is however little or no information about their adolescence or early twenties, which we suggest may have revealed a lifelong illness in these women.…”

Eating disorders in men aged midlife and beyond

“…Four cases [53][54][55] reported premorbid or current obesity. The 41-year old male [56] diagnosed with BED and class III obesity reached his highest weight following an earlier episode of AN at the age of 19 years.…”

“…The 62-year old male patient reported by Morgan and Mash [54] had sustained two fractures during excessive exercise in his 50s. Although lower rates of excessive exercise might be expected due to frailty or age-related physical limitations in this population, we identified five cases aged 62-75 years old [41,[53][54][55]65] who engaged in excessive exercise behavior. Future research is needed to determine the prevalence and severity of adverse psychiatric and medical risks of long-term weight-loss driven or muscularity-driven exercise behavior, as well as anabolic-androgenic steroids or supplement use, which is a common feature of eating disorders among younger men [67], not yet systematically examined among older men.…”