SYDNEY, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Australia has the world's highest prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, with an estimated 1,026.5 cases per 100,000 people affected by one of the two disorders, a global study has found.
Global cases of the two eating disorders rose 71 percent between 1990 and 2023, and are projected to continue rising through 2050, underscoring the need to integrate eating disorders into mental health surveillance, prevention, early detection, and care planning worldwide, according to a summary of the study published on the Australian Science Media Center website on Thursday.
The study, based on the Global Burden of Disease 2023 analysis, estimated that about 18.1 million people worldwide had the two disorders in 2023, including 3.92 million with anorexia and 14.2 million with bulimia.
Australia's University of Queensland epidemiologist Damian Santomauro, the study's senior author, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Australia's ranking was "surprising and concerning."
Females accounted for nearly 70 percent of global cases, while about 41 percent of all cases affected people aged 10 to 24. The largest increases occurred in East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, according to the study published in JAMA Psychiatry. ■
