Diabetic Women Cutting Back Insulin In A Dangerous Attempt To Control Weight
Some women with type 1 diabetes play a dangerous game with cutting back their insulin, say researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School.
These patients choose to skip insulin doses to try and offset the weight gain that sometimes come from treatment. Unfortunately, inadequate insulin levels for type 1 diabetics cause blood sugar imbalances that over time can lead to significant kidney damage, serious eye, skin and foot problems and other diabetes complications.
The risk for voluntary insulin restriction, or “diabulimia,” in type 1 diabetics is especially high because this group of patients already has more than a 2.5 increase risk for general eating disorders, according to some studies.
Ann. E. Goebel-Fabbri, Ph.D. led the Harvard Medical School 11-year follow up study of 234 female type 1 diabetics to see how insulin restriction affected their overall health and death rate. Nearly one-third of the women enlisted in the study confessed to taking less insulin than they were prescribed.
