Outcome of Anorexia Nervosa

Assessment of the bulimic patient.

“…, they remain at a low body weight and are amenorrheic and manifest a high degree of psychiatric morbidity. Furthermore, it appears that anorexia nervosa is one of the most fatal of psychiatric disorders: Hsu, 20 in his review of 16 outcome studies, found that a mortality rate approaching 5% at around five years was not at all uncommon. Although bulimia is believed by a number of authorities 3, 13, , 29, , 36, to be an intractable condition, these assertions of chronicity can't be taken as proven, since there is a dearth of long-term follow-up work.…”

Heart risk associated with weight loss in anorexia nervosa and eating disorders: electrocardiographic changes during the early phase of refeeding

“…An up to 10-fold increase in mortality corrected for age and gender has been observed and 50% or more of deaths are attributed to the consequences of starvation (3). Severe undernutrition, cardiac arrest and electrolyte disturbances are, alone or in combination, the most common causes of death (2,4,5).…”

Nutritional assessment of college age women with bulimia

“…When bulimia occurs in conjunction with the related disorder, anorexia nervosa, the condition is often associated with serious morbidity and even mortality (Hsu, 1980;Casper et al, 1980a;Garfinkel, et al, 1980). Nutritional studies with anorexic patients indicate abnormalities in lipid metabolism as demonstrated by hypercholesterolemia, reduced capacity for bile acid excretion, and hypercarotenemia.…”