Death Rate Among Anorexia Nervosa Patients Exaggerated
A Mayo Clinic study that looked at mortality rates among patients with anorexia nervosa over a period of 60 years concluded that people diagnosed with the disorder die at the same rate as people who do not have the disorder. This contradicts both previous clinical studies as well as many commonly cited claims that the death rate for people with the disorder is extremely high.
The commonly repeated claim is that individuals with anorexia nervosa have a mortality rate that is an astounding 12 times higher than the general population. But, as an epidemiologist with the Mayo Clinic points out, that is because previous studies were generally conducted in hospital settings where individuals with the most advanced cases of the disorder would be overrepresented.
Searching medical records, the Mayo Clinic identified 208 patients who met the criteria for an anorexia nervosa diagnosis between 1935 and 1989. The researchers found that those patients had the same death rate as the general population.
Mayo Clinic epidemiologist Joseph Melton said that,
Although our data suggest that overall mortality is not increased among community patients with anorexia nervosa in general, these findings should not lead to complacency in clinical practice because deaths do occur.
Patrick Sullivan, a professor of psychiatry and genetics at the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study that what it showed was that anorexia nervosa symptoms occurred along a spectrum. Those with the most severe cases — such as those requiring hospitalization — may indeed have a higher mortality rate, but it is important to make distinctions between the degree of severity of the disease rather than lumping all cases in with the most severe and claiming that anyone with the disorder has a 12 times higher mortality rate.
Source:
Death rate for eating disorder not unusual. Brad Evenson, National Post (Canada), March 12, 2003.
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November 6th, 2008 at 12:01 am
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