(The New York Times News Service) -- As the debate quiets down over the life and death of Terri Schiavo, Toni Saiber thinks one crucial issue has been overlooked:

How Schiavo came to die, brain-damaged, at the eye of a maelstrom.

In most accounts, her underlying medical problem gets only a quick mention: She suffered cardiac arrest because of a potassium deficiency believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

But to Saiber, and to many who treat eating disorders, how Terry Schiavo got attached to a feeding tube 15 years ago represents an opportunity to remind the world that eating disorders can have devastating, even deadly, consequences. They see her story as providing a chance, maybe, to scare a few people into treatment.

Schiavo likely suffered from bulimia, in which people eat in binges and then force themselves to vomit to lose weight.

"It's a very embarrassing illness," Saiber said. "People think, 'How could you do this to yourself? You must be crazy.' There's still a stigma about mental illness," she said.

Saiber understands that very well. She suffered from the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, in which people eat little food for fear of gaining weight.

In January 2003, she was in a coma for a week, emaciated and malnourished. Her heart rate soared, and after 22 years of anorexia, her body had nothing left to fight infections eating at her intestines.

Saiber spent eight weeks in the hospital, and eight more weeks at an eating-disorder treatment center.

Now she is helping others. In February, she debuted the Denver-based nonprofit Eating Disorder Foundation.

Dr. Philip Mehler, associate medical director of Denver Health and head of that hospital's eating-disorder treatment center, said he too is disappointed that little attention has been paid to the condition that reportedly made Schiavo sick in the first place.

"Certainly this could be a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness about the fact that we think the root cause of all this was a complication from an eating disorder," Mehler said.

But Dr. Kenneth Weiner, medical director of the Eating Disorder Center of Denver, doubts Schiavo's case will have much effect on people already in the grip of anorexia or bulimia.

"It just doesn't work. I wish it did," he said.

Weiner said his patients are aware that Schiavo likely suffered from bulimia.

"But I can't tell you we've had a lot of people saying, 'I don't want to be Terry Schiavo. I want to get well.' "

Weiner said the most he hopes for is that "perhaps it might deter people from starting to experiment with this behavior."

What happened to Schiavo is not common, but it is not unheard of either, Weiner said.

Bulimics who purge several times a day can cause their potassium levels to dip so dramatically that it produces erratic heart rhythms. And in rare severe cases, such disruptions can lead to cardiac arrest. This scenario is believed to be what happened in Schiavo's case.

The National Eating Disorder Association wants the public to know that, and to know that treatment is available -- although not always accessible.

Last week, the association urged members to petition lawmakers to force insurance companies to pay for eating-disorder treatment.

"While members of Congress scrambled this past week to intervene in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, millions have asked why Congress and state legislatures have ignored individuals with eating disorders, long before their health is as seriously compromised as Schiavo's," the association wrote.

"Insurance coverage for those suffering from eating disorders is critical, and yet legislation to make that a reality continues to languish on Capitol Hill," said Lynn Grefe, chief executive of an eating-disorder group.

Despite the severe, and expensive, potential consequences of anorexia and bulimia, many insurance companies still balk at footing the bill for treatment, said Dr. Jennifer Hagman, director of the eating-disorder treatment program at Children's Hospital.

"Families come in desperate for treatment, and they have to figure out if they can pay for it," Hagman said.

She said inpatient care can run about $1,000 a day. Most insurance companies will pay for that, but usually only patients who meet certain criteria of physical damage -- like dangerously low potassium levels -- qualify.

Outpatient therapy can be up to $800 a day, she said.

Schiavo never got that treatment. And so while the nation, its religious leaders and lawmakers, her family and friends mourn her death and argue its consequences, Toni Saiber mourns Schiavo as what she herself likely was: a victim of an eating disorder.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times News Service. All rights reserved.