A large number of female diabetic sufferers have found a new way to lose weight... to stop taking their insulin injections.
Doctors are calling this new condition diabulimia and is present in many type 1 diabetes sufferers who have discovered that failing to take the correct dose of insulin, which helps absorb glucose to be used for energy, can lead to quick weight loss.
Around 250,000 in the UK suffer from type 1 diabetes, which destroys the insulin producing cells in the pancreas, and it is estimated that up to a thrid of sufferers are now fighting the disorder diabulimia.
30,000 of type 1 diabete sufferers are under 30 half of which are women and these women and young girls are putting their health at serious risk as skipping insulin injections could lead to blindess, heart and kidney disease and even death.
A study in 1999 with 33 women established a link between eating disorders and the misuse of insulin and doctors in America have very recently publicly raised their concrns with the practice of insulin misuse.
Since the BBC's Radio One Newsbeat ran with this story they have been inundated with calls and emails from young girls who admit that they have skipped their injections in a bid to lose weight.
Victoria Hunter, 26 from Glasgow said: "If I knew I had a party coming up at the weekend and wanted to fit to a lovely outfit I would maybe skip all my evening injections, and lose up to half a stone in a week.
"I just felt pretty rotten all the time, and just had no quality of life, I was tired all the time, thirsty and irritable and had no energy to do anything."
Many girls just felt under pressure to lose weight. Diabulimia appears to just be the latest way to lose weight after the size 0 craze has raged for the past 18 months, only to be fuelled by many high profile female celebrities who went on diets to reach this elusive clothes size.
But the pressureto be a certain weight and look a certain way appears to be gaining momentum as young impressionable girls are influenced by their favourite stars and clothes lines coming in smaller and smaller sizes.
Matt Hunt, science information manager at Diabetes UK said: "Teenagers and young adults need appropriate and rapid access to psychological care and support to help them manage their condition effectively."
But it's not their condition that should be under scrutiny here, many of these sufferers can manage their diabetes, it's the pressures that these young people face in their everyday lives,from the images in magazine to peer pressure, that are causing them to find extreme measures to lose weight.
Helen Earnshaw