People with eating disorders have an increased risk of developing an autoimmune disease, according to a recent study.

Finnish researchers aimed to address the prevalence and incidence of autoimmune diseases in a large Finnish patient cohort with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

The risk of eating disorders has been shown to be increased in some somatic illnesses. Many of these illnesses, such as type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel diseases, present autoimmune etiology. In addition, a prior autoimmune disease has recently been shown to increase the risk of mood disorders and schizophrenia.

For the study, researchers compared more than 2,000 patients treated at the Eating Disorder Unit of Helsinki University Central Hospital between 1995 and 2010 to the general population controls. Data of 30 autoimmune diseases were from the Hospital Discharge Register from 1969 to 2010.

They found that of patients with eating disorders, 8.9 percent had been diagnosed with one or more autoimmune diseases. Of the control individuals, the number was 5.4 percent, Dr. Anu Raevuori from the University of Helsinki said in the study.

The increase in endocrinological diseases was explained by type 1 diabetes, whereas Crohn's disease contributed most to the risk of gastroenterological diseases.

The higher prevalence of autoimmune diseases among patients with eating disorders was not exclusively due to endocrinological and gastroenterological diseases; when these two categories were excluded, the increase in prevalence was seen in the patients both before the onset of the eating disorder treatment and at the end of the follow-up.

Researchers said their findings support the link between immune-mediated mechanism and development of eating disorders.

The findings were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.