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Eating disorders - Management
What else might it be?
There are a large number of causes of weight loss or amenorrhoea, but in practice eating disorders should be relatively easy to differentiate from other causes when the time is taken to explore the history, including corroborative information and the person's attitude to the weight loss.
- Differential diagnosis of weight loss
- Malabsorption (for example coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease).
- Cancer.
- Illicit drug use or alcoholism.
- Infection (for example tuberculosis).
- Autoimmune disease.
- Endocrine disorder (for example hyperthyroidism).
- Differential diagnosis of amenorrhoea (see the CKS topic on Amenorrhoea).
- Pregnancy.
- Primary ovarian failure.
- Polycystic ovary syndrome (see the CKS topic on Polycystic ovary syndrome).
- Pituitary prolactinoma.
- Hypothalamic causes.
- Psychiatric differential diagnosis
- Depression (see the CKS topic on Depression).
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- Psychosis (rare).
[National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, 2004]
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