Diabetic ketoacidosis and mortality in people with type 1 diabetes and eating disorders

Objective — To determine the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and all-cause mortality among adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes with and without an eating disorder.

Research Design and Methods — With use of population-level healthcare administrative data covering the entire population of Ontario, Canada, all people with type 1 diabetes aged 10-39 years as of January 2014 were identified. Individuals with a history of eating disorders were age- and sex-matched 10:1 with individuals without eating disorders. All individuals were followed for 6 years for hospitalization/emergency department visits for DKA and for all-cause mortality.

Results — We studied 168 people with eating disorders and 1,680 age- and sex-matched people without eating disorders. Among adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes, 168 (0.8%) had a history of eating disorders. The crude incidence of DKA was 112.5 per 1,000 patient-years in people with eating disorders vs. 30.8 in people without eating disorders. After adjustment for baseline differences, the subdistribution hazard ratio for comparison of people with and without eating disorders was 3.30 (95% CI 2.58-4.23; P < 0.0001). All-cause mortality was 16.0 per 1,000 person-years for people with eating disorders vs. 2.5 for people without eating disorders. The adjusted hazard ratio was 5.80 (95% CI 3.04-11.08; P < 0.0001).

Conclusions — Adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes and eating disorders have more than triple the risk of DKA and nearly sixfold increased risk of death compared with their peers without eating disorders.