How Disordered Eating Impacts the Kidneys
In my final blog post of the three part series relating eating disorders to bodily functions, I will be writing about the impact of disordered eating on the kidneys, as well as if the effects are undoable. If you would like more information on other parts of the body that are impacted by eating disorders, check out my other posts on the brain and the heart!
So far, I’ve discussed the implications of eating disorders as they relate to the brain and the heart in this blog series. However, another organ that suffers when an individual develops an eating disorder are the kidneys, and after researching the effects that they can experience, I think it is important to share the information I learned, because there can be some severe consequences to this organ.
What Eating Disorders do to the Kidneys
According to Dr. Elissa Rosen, the “most common cause of acute kidney injury as it relates to eating disorders is due to dehydration or overall volume depletion.” Behaviors in eating disorders that lead to fluid depletion and salt depletion (such as purging behaviors in individuals with bulimia nervosa) cause a decreased amount of fluids moving through the bloodstream. The kidneys respond to this decreased level by making changes to try to “maximize hydration and maintain blood pressure.” However, if the loss of fluids is too great, the kidneys cannot make adequate changes. When this occurs, blood flowing to the kidneys decreases, which leads to kidney injury. If the decreased blood flow is upheld for a long period of time, more severe damage can occur, and permanent damage can result in chronic kidney disease.
Uh… chronic kidney disease?
Unfortunately, yes. If the disordered eating behavior continues over a long period of time, an individual has a higher chance of developing chronic kidney disease. It most commonly develops in eating disorder behaviors that lead to low blood potassium levels and overall volume depletion of the kidney itself. This can cause permanent damage to the kidney. If the behavior continues still, chronic kidney disease can progress to the point of needing renal replacement therapy. Unless the individual receives a kidney transplant, they will be on dialysis for the rest of their life.
Eating Disorders that Contribute to Kidney Injury
While in the last post I discussed how anorexia nervosa has the largest impact on the heart, the focus now shifts to bulimia nervosa, as the purging behaviors associated with this eating disorder are the behaviors most responsible for acute kidney injury. Purging behaviors such as use of laxatives or diuretics (a diuretic is something that forces a person to urinate more than normal) and vomiting can cause severe dehydration and loss of bodily salts. This lack of hydration then leads to the response of the kidneys that I discussed above, which consequently leads to the longer term problems down the road such as dialysis or renal replacement therapy.
Potential of Reversing the Effects
Kidney damage is one of the few effects of an eating disorder on the body whose damage sometimes may not be reversed, and instead recovery could just halt the damage to the point where it won’t get worse. According to the Eating Disorder Institution, it is possible to damage a kidney to the point of irreversible damage; however, the “anticipated organ failure is not realized when the patient reaches full remission.” To explain it to you in a way that is a little easier to understand, while in recovery an individual may be told that their kidneys are damaged to the point where they could go into kidney failure in the future. However, once they reach remission they see that their kidneys are no longer in danger of failing at all. Therefore, although the effects on the kidney are scary and can sometimes be irreversible, there is a chance of recovery or even halting the damage process.
With that, the final post in my three part blog series on eating disorders and their impact on the body comes to a close. Thank you for reading, and as always, there are many, many resources available to you or your loved ones if you or they are struggling with disordered eating. The phone number to the National Eating Disorder Association will again be below. Don’t hesitate to find help if you or a loved one need it.
NEDA helpline: 1–800–931–2237
