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Distribution of eating disorders in subjects with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus: a description of two cases

The presence of changes in eating behavior seems to be increased in diabetes mellitus (DM). However, the distribution of varied categories of eating disorders tends to be distinguished according to the physiopathology of diabetes. The objective of this report is to discuss two distinct cases of eating disorders in type 1 (T1DM) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Patient A is a 19-year-old female who has had T1DM since she was 13 years old. She presented prominent depressive symptoms and 2 years ago she started presenting binge eating episodes followed by self-induced vomits and insulin omission to avoid weight gain. Due to this behavior, she had several hospitalizations associated with worse glycemic control. After treatment with fluoxetine, there was remission of eating psychopathology and improvement in DM control. Patient B is a 42-year-old female who has had T2DM for 6 years. She has grade II obesity and had been showing, even before the diagnosis of T2DM, binge eating episodes in the absence of compensatory behaviors that jeopardized the metabolic control of DM. She started a treatment with fluoxetine up to 60 mg/day, with remission of binge eating, weight loss and reduction in glycosylated hemoglobin. The incidence of eating disorders in T1DM seems to be associated with an increase in concern with body shape and the possibility of insulin omission as a compensatory behavior. In T2DM, obesity seems to be one of the factors associated with the development of eating psychopathology.

Diabetes mellitus; eating disorder; depression


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