Laxative Abuse For Bulimia

By Sandra Kim Leong

If you are bulimic, you may engage in laxative abuse as you believe laxatives can stimulate your digestive system so that the food that you have just consumed would not be absorbed. Bulimia is characterized by an episode of binge eating followed by intentional purging. Bulimics either purge through vomiting or laxatives.

Very often, you feel guilty and ashamed that you are not able to control your eating binges. Instead of consuming a burger, you ate three or four for lunch. You end up feeling very stuffed. At the same time, you are concerned about the weight that you will put on. That is when you decide to engage in purging to attain fast weight loss or at least, not gain through the nutrients from the food that you just ate. If you use laxatives for purging on a regular basis, this is highly dangerous.

It is a mere myth to believe that laxatives can actually help to lose weight. Laxatives cause the nerve endings within your bowel to be stimulated so much so that you need to go to the toilet. Waste located within the large intestine are then expelled. However, it is not your large intestine that absorbs nutrients from the food. It is simply a path for waste to go through once your body has digested the food. Where digestion of food takes place is actually in the small intestine.

Food inside the small intestine cannot be removed from the body with the use of laxative. Weight loss after taking laxatives is often water weight, which does not indicate true weight loss. Laxatives have simply caused a dehydration of the body. When subjected to abuse, they cause many problems.

Laxative abuse causes an electrolyte imbalance, thus affecting the normal functioning of the nerves and muscles of the body. You start to experience muscle pain and spasms. It is also possible to develop an irregular heartbeat, which can result in death. Laxative abuse can also cause your colon to lose its mucous membrane. You become more susceptible to getting infection as your immune system shuts down. You are also more prone to getting irritable bowel syndrome and bowel tumors due to laxative abuse.

If you have thoughts of using laxatives to control your weight, you should really seek help. Doctors can render you good advice and find out what problems you need to tackle. Both your mind and body needs to be healed so that you can achieve greater health, an ideal weight and superb well being.

Eating disorders can be very damaging to your health. Sandra Kim Leong writes on the ills of anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating and binge eating. For more information and updates, please visit her blog at http://www.eating-disorder-research.com

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