Jackie Kennedy was hospitalized with an eating disorder and left fighting for her life

Jackie Kennedy battled an eating disorder that left her hospitalized and fighting for her life, a new book reveals.

In 'Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed', DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan details Jackie's many health battles from 'disordered eating' to PTSD after her husband President John F Kennedy's assassination in 1963, and a series of lost pregnancies.

While married to her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, Jackie 'lost 24 pounds in nine days, started having panic attacks and could barely stand up,' Callahan writes, adding: 'She wound up in the hospital.'

The extreme weight-loss was apparently prompted by a National Enquirer front page featuring a picture of Jackie with her belly 'looking distended'. The headline read: 'Is she or isn't she expecting?'

 'Always fanatical about her weight... Jackie went on a crash starvation diet,' Callahan writes. 'Each day, she allowed herself just half a grapefruit, a little yogurt, 2½ ounces of meat, one apple, 3½ ounces of green vegetables, and a salad without dressing.'

Callahan's new book is being exclusively serialized by the Mail in a major series.