DIABETES-MELLITUS AND EATING DISORDERS - A MULTICENTER STUDY ON THE COMORBIDITY OF THE 2 DISEASES

Because diet is a key issue in the treatment of diabetes mellitus, it is assumed that these patients are prone to eating disorders. In a mul ticenter study, we have therefore assessed the prevalence of eating di sorders in 662 patients with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM ) (n=340) and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) (n=322), A two-stage study combining self-rating questionnaires and a standard ized interview was carried out. We found a prevalence of eating disord ers of 5.9% (lifetime prevalence of 10%), irrespective of gender and t ype of diabetes; 4.1% of the whole sample reported intentional insulin undertreatment or omission. When patients were stratified according t o IDDM and NIDDM, there was no difference in the prevalence of all eat ing disorders (point prevalence 5.5% vs. 6.5%, lifetime prevalence 10. 0% vs. 9.9%). Prevalence of bulimia nervosa (BN) was more frequent in IDDM patients (point prevalence 1.5% vs. 0.3%, lifetime prevalence 3.2 % vs. 1.9%) and binge eating (BED) was more frequent in NIDDM patients (point prevalence 1.8% vs. 3.7%, lifetime prevalence 2.6% vs. 5.9%). We conclude that eating disorders seem to be equally frequent in IDDM and NIDDM patients. However, there might be different features of eati ng disorders in both types of diabetes. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.