Eating disorders and PTSD

People with eating disorders often suffer with anxiety as well. 75% of people with an eating disorder have experienced at least one anxiety disorder during their lifetime with obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia being the most common. However, there has been little research done into whether people with eating disorders also suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany studied 101 eating-disorder patients. They found that 63.3% of those with anorexia and 57.7% of those with bulimia had experienced at least one trauma. 10% of those with anorexia and 14.1% of those with bulimia fulfilled the study definition for a current diagnosis of PTSD. The patients with an eating disorder and PTSD were more likely to report psychosomatic problems than those without PTSD.

Tagay, Sefik, Schlegl, Sandra and Senf, Wolfgang - Traumatic events, posttraumatic stress symptomatology and somatoform symptoms in eating disorder patients European Eating Disorders Review March-April 2010, 18(2), 124-132