Purging

Purging, or vomiting to reduce the calories absorbed by the body is dangerous. It can kill you in more than one way. This document will not tell you how to purge, but will explain the dangers and TELL YOU HOW TO AVOID damaging yourself as much as possible.

By emptying the beginning of the digestive tract where electrolytes are processed, you can leave yourself without enough for the heart to function, giving yourself a heart attack. This can also happen from laxative use.

Purging can also cause the esophagus (the tube that carries food from your mouth to your stomach) to burst open from the pressure or to rip completely off the stomach, allowing the contents, including acid, to get into your abdominal cavity, which can cause death. Any blood seen when purging is a dangerous sign, and any rupture can be serious enough to require immediate surgery to save your life.

No one here will recommend that anyone should purge to lose calories.

  1. You don't lose as many calories as you think - look around - many bulimics aren't even underweight.
  2. The brain reacts to purging by making you binge more often - it's a feedback mechanism.
  3. You can purge the calories more effectively through exercise, without the danger.

Here are some of the dangers, and how to avoid them:

  1. Foreign Objects:

    Some people have used objects such as the smooth end of a toothbrush to induce purging. One danger is that if you inhale, the object can be sucked out of your fingers and get lodged deeper in the esophagus where you can't retrieve it. A hospital visit will be required. Purging at that point could be quite dangerous - it could force the object through the esophagus, possibly into lungs or heart.

  2. Rupture:

    When you are sick, or if you have damaged the inside lining of the esophagus, it can become inflamed and swollen. This makes the opening much smaller than usual. If you purge at these times, all the pressure from your stomach is trying to force a lot of food through a tiny opening, and the pressure can be too much and rip it off your stomach. You want to absolutely avoid purging if there's any possibility of inflamation or unhealed damage from prior purges.

  3. Teeth rotted away from stomach acid:

    Rinsing with water, or better, water and baking soda to neutralize the acid, as soon as possible afterwards can minimize the damage to the teeth. Brushing is not recommended, as it is believed to remove tooth enamel when it is weak from the stomach acid.

  4. Prevent acid / food damage to the esophagus:

    Drinking water will dilute the acid and minimize damage to the esophagus, while at the same time providing greater volume so the food pieces themselves are in less direct contact with the esophagus, doing less damage.

  5. Finger skin and nail damage from acid:

    Avoid putting your fingers down your throat - the acid causes damage to skin and nails.

  6. Red spots around the eyes:

    When you're throwing up, there's intense pressure in your head - if the pressure is too great, you can burst some blood vessels in your eye. It's called a subconjunctival hemorrhage. Avoid straining too hard if possible.



    Additional Information

    Results of one study showing the effectiveness of vomiting at reducing calories after binging:

    While caloric consumption during binge eating has been measured, it is not known how many of the calories are retained in the gastrointestinal tract after vomiting. In 17 normal weight bulimic patients, there appeared to be a ceiling on the number of calories retained after vomiting. That is, whether or not bulimic patients had small (mean = 1,549 kcal, SD (Standard Deviation) = 505) or large (mean = 3,530 kcal, SD = 438) binges, they retained similar amounts of kilocalories (mean = 1,128, SD = 497, versus mean = 1,209, SD = 574, respectively) after vomiting.


    Tryptophan deficiency can cause binging:

    In one study, bulimics were deprived of the single protein tryptophan. In reaction, their serotonin levels dropped and they binged more violently, ingesting and purging an average of 900 calories more each day. In another study, adding extra tryptophan to the diet reduced bulimic binges and mood problems by raising serotonin levels. Most recently, an Oxford researcher, Katherine Smith, reported that even years into recovery, bulimics can have a return of their cravings and mood problem after only a few hours of tryptophan depletion. She concluded, "Our findings support suggestions that chronic depletion of plasma tryptophan may be one of the mechanisms whereby persistent dieting can lead to the development of eating disorders in vulnerable individuals.