Ruthan Brodsky
Just a half a year before my sister died she fell and broke her hip. She was going out to dinner with her husband and fell while stepping down from a curb. She stayed in a nursing facility for rehab and recovered. Anyone who commented about her thinness was pooh poohed away and given the reason as digestive problems.
A couple of months later she fell and broke her foot. Then she fell and something happened to her shoulder. She was back in the hospital, not eating, and this time she was confronted.. but it was too late. I recall my brother-in-law said she saw a psychiatrist a few times. She was so smart she could bamboozle anyone until maybe a month before she died and by then it was too late.
As little as she weighed, her skeletal structure could not hold her up.
Anorexia has significant physical consequences. Patients can experience nutritional and hormonal problems that negatively impact bone density. In young women, low body weight in females causes the body to stop producing any estrogen, resulting in a condition known as amenorrhea or absent menstrual periods. Low estrogen levels also contribute to significant losses in bone density.
It gets worse. Individuals with anorexia often produce excessive amounts of the adrenal hormone cortisol, which is known to trigger bone loss. Then there’s the problems of a decrease in the production of growth hormone, calcium deficiency and malnutrition which again all point to bone loss.
This is very significant for teen-age girls because up to one-third of peak bone density is achieved during puberty and anorexia taking place in a girl’s late teens spells trouble. The longer the duration of the disorder, the greater the bone loss and the less likely that bone mineral density will return to normal. The fact is that half of young female patients with anorexia have bone mineral deficiencies.
My sister lay in bed dieing from pneumonia but the doctor couldn’t help because he said her chest would cave in if he put anything on it.
I worry about some of the young and not so young women I see who are so very thin. Are they headed for fractures from which they won’t recover?
A couple of readers have asked me whether anorexia is an addiction or a psychiatric problem. I suspect it’s both but I’ll do some research and ask around and see what I come up with. Wouldn’t mind if one of our readers answered this questions. Scroll down to the comment window and tell us what you think. If you can back it up with references, so much the better. Personal experience counts on this blog.
Warm regards
Ruthan Brodsky
