Nurse Penny is aware that following medical conditions are commonly found in clients with bulimia nervosa?

Correct Answer: C. Diabetes mellitus

Bulimia nervosa can lead to many complications, including diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. Girls and young women with type 1 diabetes have about twice the risk of developing eating disorders as their peers without diabetes. This may be because of the weight changes that can occur with insulin therapy and good metabolic control and the extra attention people with diabetes must pay to what they eat.

• Option A: The most common features of eating disorders in girls and young women with type 1 diabetes are dissatisfaction with their body weight and shape and desire to be thinner; dieting or manipulation of insulin doses to control weight; and, binge eating. Researchers estimate that 10–20 percent of girls in their mid-teen years and 30–40 percent of late teenaged girls and young adult women with diabetes skip or alter insulin doses to control their weight.
• Option B: In people with diabetes, eating disorders can lead to poor metabolic control and repeated hospitalizations for dangerously high or low blood sugar. Chronic poor blood sugar control leads to long-term complications, such as eye, kidney, and nerve damage. Diabulimia is a media-coined term that refers to an eating disorder in a person with diabetes, typically type I diabetes, wherein the person purposefully restricts insulin in order to lose weight. Some medical professionals use the term ED-DMT1, Eating Disorder-Diabetes Mellitus Type 1, which is used to refer to any type of eating disorder comorbid with type 1 diabetes.
• Option D: The human body is surprisingly resilient and people with diabulimia often manage to function with much higher blood sugars than should be possible. Thus, the major consequences of diabulimia or ED-DMT1 are usually related to prolonged elevated blood sugar. These complications can be severe and irreversible, so proper treatment and early detection are critical. High blood sugar causes the body to produce certain enzymes and hormones that negatively affect the immune system and reduce the body’s defense against infection. This risk of infection plus slowed healing heightens a person’s chance of developing gangrene, sepsis, or a bone infection.