Eating disorders prevalent in OCD and other anxiety patients

[David Baxter PhD]

Eating disorders prevalent in anxiety patients
by Liz Fox, RCPsych, Anxiety Insights
Wednesday, 3 June 2009

Doctors and other health workers should be more aware of the high risk of eating disorders among people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and other anxiety disorders.

According to new research presented today at the Royal College of Psychiatrists' 2009 Annual Meeting, as many as one in five people with OCD could also have some form of disordered eating. In addition, disordered eating may occur in as many as one in three patients with other anxiety disorders.

OCD is a serious anxiety-related condition that affects 2-3% of the adult population. People with severe OCD may find it difficult to work regularly, or even take part in their family or social life.

Dr Lynne Drummond, a consultant psychiatrist at South West London and St George's NHS Mental Health Trust, collected data from a sample of patients with severe OCD who were referred to a specialist unit for treatment. A control group of patients with other anxiety disorders referred for treatment to the same unit was also studied.

The study found that a fifth of the patients with OCD also had signs of disordered eating. The prevalance for those with other anxiety disorders was a one in three.

Dr Drummond said: "Although these have been several studies examining the prevalence of OCD and obsessive symptoms in patients with eating disorders, there is a dearth of studies where patients with OCD and other anxiety disorders are examined for eating disorders.

"This study suggests that clinicians should be made aware of the high prevalence of disordered eating in patients with all anxiety disorders as well as OCD."

 

[Cat Dancer]

This is so true for me.

I wonder how young can one be diagnosed and treated for OCD though?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Fairly young children, certainly while in the primary grades, can be diagnosed with and treated for OCD.

 

[AtlasRises]

In high school I was diagnosed with serious OCD and was hospitalized for it. No amount of therapy or drugs helped me overcome OCD; the only thing that worked was following the four steps in "Brain Lock" by Jeffrey Schwartz. The principal is that by changing your thought patterns, you can change your brain's physiology. Brain scans of patients before and after using this method showed marked differences in brain function.

I recovered from OCD and although I have minor "quirks," these are not anything that that get in the way of life. Unfortunately, now I am in my mid-20s and have been struggling with bulimia for several years. I have been avidly reading eating disorder self-help books and nothing is working so I am becoming quite discouraged. I am a very rational, logical, unemotional person and the "love yourself" approach of many of these books does nothing for me. I am so turned off from therapy due to bad experiences as a teenager that I really do not want to see a therapist, either.

It struck me today that bulimia is very much like OCD, in that you engage in repeated behaviors that you know are not helpful and that you know do not solve the actual problem. I am thinking of trying the "Brain Lock" method to treat bulimia: view the bulimia symptoms as OCD symptoms and use the four steps to combat the eating disorder behavior. Has anyone considered or used this approach? Did you find it helpful?