Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

OBJECTIVE: Occasionally, patients with eating disorders have been subsequently diagnosed with esophageal achalasia. We sought to establish whether eating disorders and achalasia coexisted more often than expected by chance alone. METHOD: National record-linkage study of hospital inpatients in England, between 2001 and 2017. Use of Cox proportional hazards to compare the occurrence of achalasia in cohorts of people with or without anorexia nervosa (AN), and with or without bulimia nervosa (BN), with adjustment of the comparisons for such confounders as age, sex, and year of admission. RESULTS: There were 18,500 people in the AN cohort, 11,300 in the BN cohort, and 8.7 million in the comparison cohort. The Cox regression hazard ratio, comparing the AN cohort with the reference cohort, was 3.4 (95% confidence interval 1.8-6.3) and that in the BN cohort was 4.2 (2.2-8.2). DISCUSSION: AN and achalasia, and BN and achalasia, were diagnosed in the same individuals, more often than expected by chance. Clinicians should be aware of the possible associations with achalasia because the treatment of eating disorders and achalasia is different.

Original publication

DOI

10.1002/eat.23596

Type

Journal article

Journal

Int J Eat Disord

Publication Date

11/2021

Volume

54

Pages

2015 - 2018

Keywords

achalasia of the cardia, anorexia nervosa, association, big data, bulimia nervosa, comorbidity, epidemiology, esophageal achalasia, feeding and eating disorders, medical record linkage, medical records, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Cohort Studies, Esophageal Achalasia, Hospitalization, Humans