Eating disorders in older women

Another myth it may be time to put to rest: eating disorders that start in adulthood. And all the more reason why we need to catch eating disorders early, act assertively, and maintain lifelong monitoring:

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

Comments

  1. Very interesting! Makes early intervention ALL the more critical!

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  2. I think the discussion line of the article did say that ED's could occur for the first time in older women though it is rare. . . rare being the key word.

    We risk a lot when we make blanket generalizations about mental disorders

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  3. I believe they say that the disease is rare, and that they found NO cases of adult onset.

    There may be cases out there, but the point here is that this is an illness that takes hold in adolescence and patients need and DESERVE treatment then. This also speaks to the issue of whether this illness is a choice or a biological vulnerability at a certain developmental age. If it were a volitional issue, then it would be more likely to show up at different life stages.

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  4. I have some trouble with this because I did not really develop full-blown restricting AN until I was 23 years old. I suppose I have always been somewhat EDNOS but I didn't really start to exhibit severe AN behaviors until much later in life. I guess ultimately this makes me feel like somewhat of a fraud and makes me wonder if what I had was not AN at all...

    http://synecdocheblog.blogspot.com/

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  5. Jessie,

    I think you may be filtering the information you are reading. The research was of people with all diagnoses: AN, BN, EDNOS. Not that it is a competition... Your brain condition is trying to get you to feel unworthy, a "fraud," but with effective treatment you will see that all of us are worthy. You are worthy of treatment and recovery and insight and happiness.

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  6. A sample of 26 patients is interesting but hardly conclusive. The most we can canclude is that the incidence of adult onset AN is probably low.

    arturo

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  7. Arturo,

    That was over ten years out of the pool of all patients who used the clinic, I believe. Very few patients were older, and of the older ones none of them had developed the illness in adulthood.

    It doesn't mean everything, but it means something.

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  8. http://senior-spectrum.com/news01_060209/

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  9. I do think it is quite dangerous to just go with one lot of research; especially when one has already formed an idea of what one believes. This can lead to filtering out information that does not fit in with that theory.

    http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2509215

    It appears that trauma is the main cause of adult onset ED.

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  10. I'm a subscriber to the journal, and I'm looking forward to reading the full text. I am sure it cites the earlier study you mention, and I'm curious about that.

    If 1% of eating disorder patients do first occur in late adulthood, it still matters. No one's eating disorder should be neglected or under-treated. A bigger question is whether the recent interest in adult-onset eating disorders in the media is based on reality or an attempt to bring up other social issues. I believe it is mostly the latter, and not a growing trend or a reason to guide eating disorder treatment policy.

    We're still early days in figuring this illness out, so certainty is a risky business. I'm not certain about this issue, myself.

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  11. I am new to this site but would like to make a comment if I may. I am 46 years old and I have an eating disorder though I am not quite sure exactly where I fit with the terminology. I have suffered all of my life with a weight obsession unless of course, it was one that I felt was 'low' enough. When I was 26 I developed epilepsy and the medication I was put on made me gain a horrendous amount of weight and no amount of starvation would make it budge! Thankfully a change in that made it come off and things settled but I then had a lobectomy in 2000 and afterwards my weight and seizures became my biggest foe and THATS when the anorexia started to take its true hold on me; I was 38. At this point I weigh roughly 100 pounds and struggle with everything I eat, stand on the scales several times a day and the food and calories possess my thoughts. I may be a rare case and it may be elevated by my epilepsy and a need for me to try to control something in my life but, I do exist..

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  12. I just poured my heart out and it was all for nothing - it was lost or errored!

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  13. Anonymous, from what I have learnt, you are not that rare or alone.
    see this link to find out more about the very many traumas and stressors that can cause or should we rather say trigger an eating disorder.
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/13345638/Comprehensive-Handbook-of-Psychotherapy-Volume-1-Psycho-Dynamic-Object-Relations-Florence-w-Kaslow
    Please be sure to get help.

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