Every year, millions of people are diagnosed with an eating disorder. Those with eating disorders generally become so consumed with weight loss that they will do anything or try anything to make themselves skinnier. Laxatives are one of the many methods that people will try to use to lose weight.
What Do Laxatives Do?
Laxatives are used for the medical purpose of relieving constipation. Constipation can be caused by a number of things, but most often it is caused by diet. Laxatives work in the colon to make stools softer and easier to pass without straining. After taking a laxative, it is not uncommon to spend much of the day on the toilet. Many people believe that by doing so they are losing weight, because they are passing the food that they ate. However, this isn't true, and it can be dangerous over time. The stools that you pass when you use laxatives do not make you lose weight, because they are nothing but water weight. By the time food hits your colon, where the laxatives do their job, the calories from what you have consumed have already been absorbed into the body. While you feel you are losing weight, you are actually losing water from the body, which can cause dehydration if too much water is lost. The water weight that is lost will be regained the next day.
Continuous Laxative Abuse
Laxative abuse to lose weight that continues over time can be fatal if not treated. Quite often, even after knowing the truth, patients with eating disorders will continue to abuse laxatives because of how it makes them feel mentally, regardless of the effects that it has physically. Over time, laxative abuse can damage many systems within the body. Signs of laxative abuse include dehydration, bloating, gas, nausea, vomiting and severe abdominal pain. The person abusing laxatives for weight loss may also experience excessive diarrhea or constipation, neither of which is beneficial to the body. Excessive diarrhea will cause dehydration, and excessive constipation will allow poisons to build up in the body. Probably the most dangerous effect of all is what laxative abuse does to the balance of electrolytes in the body. Abuse of laxatives throws electrolytes off balance to a point that a person may develop an arrhythmia. Sometimes this can even lead to a heart attack.
Why Do You Appear to Lose Weight?
Those using laxatives to lose weight generally do appear to lose weight. While most people believe that it is from taking the laxatives, this is not true. The reality is that laxative use, as mentioned above, makes the patient lose water weight and not actual weight. This will cause the body to bloat and then cause the patient to want to lose even more weight. Generally, patients will begin to use other means in addition to the laxatives, such as reducing the number of calories they eat per day, making themselves vomit or beginning a grueling exercise routine. While these may methods may seem to have a positive effect initially in regards to weight loss, the rest of the body will begin to break down and suffer. Laxatives are most definitely not the magic element to use to lose weight. If you desire to lose weight effectively, you should do so with the help of a physician.
