Wessex researchers support people living with diabetes and an eating disorder
Diabetes is a lifelong condition which causes a person’s blood sugar level to become too high. Latest figures suggest that 4.7 million people in the UK have diabetes. For World Diabetes Day, Dr Hermione Price, Diabetes Consultant and CRN Wessex Specialty Lead, and Dr Sarah Brewster, Clinical Academic Fellow and Diabetes Speciality Registrar, spoke about their most recent research project which aims to support people who are living with type 1 diabetes and an eating disorder.
“Type 1 diabetes is a condition in which the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas stop working,” they explain. “As a result, people with type 1 diabetes cannot make the hormone insulin. Insulin is required to regulate blood glucose levels. People with type 1 diabetes cannot therefore regulate their own insulin levels and need lifelong treatment with insulin injections or with insulin given via an insulin pump.
“Type 1 diabetes can occur at any age but frequently presents in children and young people and affects around one per cent of the population. Living with type 1 diabetes can be tough; people are required to constantly monitor their glucose levels and to take doses of insulin with every meal to keep them under control. It is difficult to always know exactly how much insulin to take so sometimes glucose levels drop too low and cause “hypos”. If blood glucose levels are not kept under control then in the longer term people can develop complications of diabetes including blindness, kidney damage, heart attacks and strokes.
“We know that people living with diabetes are more prone to developing problems with their mental health than those without diabetes. This can manifest itself in many ways including increased levels of depression. It is increasingly being recognised that some people living with type 1 diabetes develop a diabetes-related eating disorder called “diabulimia”.
People who have diabulimia stop taking or miss doses of their insulin because they are worried about gaining weight. It is a very serious condition and significantly increases the risk of diabetes complications and death. It is most often seen in young women with type 1 diabetes.
“Dr Helen Partridge from the Royal Bournemouth Hospital led a pan-Wessex bid that was successful in securing funding from NHS England to support the development of a new treatment pathway for people with diabulimia living in Wessex. The project is called ComPASSION (Combined Pathway for Assessment and Support for the Syndrome of Insulin OmissioN – Type 1 Diabetes).
“Our role has been to support the work of the ComPASSION project by understanding how much healthcare professionals know about diabulimia and what their training needs are to ensure they feel confident in recognising diabulimia and knowing what care and support is available. To do this we are conducting a pan-Wessex questionnaire survey of healthcare professionals in Wessex who may come across people with diabulimia in their day to day clinical practice. This includes people working in diabetes, mental health, eating disorders, primary care and community pharmacies. We are also developing a second study to learn more about how many people have diabulimia and whether these people also have other mental health conditions. We are aiming to send the survey to all adults living with type 1 diabetes in Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight in early 2020.
“Recruitment for the healthcare professional survey is going well but please complete the survey if it is sent to you as the more responses we get the more robust our data will be.
We would also please ask that you encourage any of your patients with type 1 diabetes to complete the diabulimia survey when it is available in the New Year.
“We hope our work will support the work of the ComPASSION project and lead to better care for people with diabulimia. We would like to learn more about the existing knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals, what additional training is needed and how this should be delivered. We also want to better understand the prevalence of diabulimia and how often it is also accompanied by other mental health problems. Exploring these issues will help to ensure that the care pathway developed by the ComPASSION project will have capacity for everyone who needs it and offered the care and support needed.
“Research is vital to ensuring that we provide everyone with excellent and evidence-based care. Research active organisations have better patient outcomes than those who are less research active. We would encourage all staff and patients to get involved in research to help improve their own care and the care for generations to come.”
