rving herself all the while. Richard realized she needed more, and she was put in hospital and force-fed to try to add some weight after her weight dropped to 80 pounds. After six weeks of intravenous feeding she was up to 104 pounds and left the hospital. She returned to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving, weighing 110 pounds, but still had signs she was not cured.
She resumed her life, running around, socializing and being very active (Carpenter, 1983). She put on weight fast after leaving the hospital and this may have been too much of a strain on her weakened heart. She appeared to have beaten anorexia and had none of the symptoms of the disorder, according to a therapist who treated her for a year before her death. He considers her problem was one common to entertainers in that their lives are so manipulated by others that this is one area of their lives that they can control: food intake. He helped Karen overcome her fear of putting on too much weight if she ate more. When she left the hospital she was getting used to her new body image and eating three meals a day.
Karen collapsed from heart failure at her parents' home at the age of 32 (Diliberto, 1985). Autopsy results showed that she died from cardiotoxicity from emetine, the active ingredient in syrup of ipecac, which is sold as a vomiting agent to counteract ingested poisons. Karen had been suffering from anorexia nervosa for eight years when she died, and it is believed she had been taking ipecac regularly since leaving the hospital several months previously and gradually increased her intake. The drug causes cramps and violent vomiting, which gradually weakened her and led to her death.
There was a spate of publicity following Karen Carpenter's death, with many newspapers and industry magazines carrying the story and some TV shows because of her celebrity and the tragedy of the death of a well-known star in the recording industry. However, this did n...