Hunger Strike, Starvation Mode and Sugar Toxicity

I believe you missed a key quote in the article. "Still, 650 calories from Gatorade constitutes “a severe starvation diet,” notes Andrea Garber, an expert on starvation with UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital. The Gatorade is merely “prolonging the starvation, not preventing it.”

While starvation mode in terms of how it is used is a myth, starvation in and of itself is not. The reality is that if you restrict the bodies intake of nutrition and calories severely enough for long enough it will fist drop weight quickly, then slow the metabolism to a crawl and finally pillage itself in an attempt to survive. Don't believe it, watch someone who is not getting enough calories over a lengthy time, it is an obvious and gruesome thing to watch. The more they have in reserves the longer it takes to reach each phase.

No doubt starvation is real, how much adaptive thermogenesis kicks in above and beyond what one would expect from the lower bodyweight and loss of muscle (this is clearly a muscle wasting diet), is what would be interesting. From various things I've read I haven't seen any sort of consensus on how much additional down regulation to the metabolism there is.

i don't quite understand what your intention is with your original post. what are you trying to do, prove that anorexia/starvation results in weight loss??

AND THIS BIGGEST GROUND BREAKING POST OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO.......

This post raised a question for me , I thought what was the calorie intake of a concentration camp victim in the second world war.

I did a search on the web and found some information posted on one of the blogs
180degreehealth.com/2010/01/the-concentration-camp-diet

Here is a report on the diet of Auschwitz prisoners compared to what a normal hardworking person’s diet should consist of calorie-wise (read more at http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpol10.htm):

“Whereas according to the standards of the Physiological Committee of the Section of Hygiene of the League of Nations a hardworking man ought to receive in 24 hours about 4,800 calories and an average working man more than 3,600 calories, the prisoners at Auschwitz were getting at most from 1302 up to 1744 calories for 24 hours! 1744 calories daily represent a little less than the basic conversion of food into energy of a grown man, or in other words a little less than the amount needed by a man resting in a lying position, covered and motionless. A man who works, nourished in such a way is burning up his own tissues in order to cover the amount of energy expended. This inevitably results in the wasting away of his organism in a manner dangerous to life.


The diet of the prisoners working very hard outside the camp possessed such a calorific value. The prisoners who were working in the camp and whose work was also undoubtedly hard were getting at most 1302 calories for 24 hours, which was much below the amount necessary for the preservation of life when lying in bed.


The above given data explains in full why the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp were dying in masses after a short period of time, and only those who had the chance of getting stolen food, or were getting parcels of food from their families at home, could preserve their life. All the other prisoners were doomed to destruction”.

With the Minnesota Diet it was for a six month time period , once complete the participants went on to gain all the lost weight back plus some more. This pattern has been observed for people diet. I gleaned that info off youtube BBC doc " the men who made us thin".

but thats a fact for many... many people gain back their weight plus more, after weight loss. this is mostly due to the fact that they do not have the skills required to maintain that weight loss. my mom has gone from 230 to 130 back to 240, then down again to 140... each time she loses her weight, she goes back to her old ways... i think the weight gain after loss can be attributed to this type of mentality!

I would never try to say it's healthy to eat that little. But simple basics of calories in calories out means you will lose weight if you restrict your caloric intake for any reason. Although that statement begs an answer to the plateaus experienced by people who eat at deficit, do not increase their calories or decrease their exercise. So if calories in/out always worked, theoretically plateaus wouldn't exist.

I know I'm gonna get slammed for this one but oh well...Weight loss plateaus are purely the result of mathematical errors. Either you are not eating as little as you think or you are not burning as much as you think, the latter is most of the time the culprit in my experience because if you are eating back calories you didn't burn in the first place it stands to reason you probably don't have a deficit present anymore.

sometimes it isnt mathematical but there are factors of water retention in regards to cortisol, sodium, menstrual cycle.


When you start leaning out then you start experiencing weird plateaus, but if you are hypocaloric you are still losing fat, maybe not weight but that weight will eventually whoosh off

Which is why i said theoretically. there's all sorts of reasons to plateau. I hope the rest of the weight whooshs off. cause i'm tired of looking at it.

sigh......................
that's all this is worth.

Well obviously the gastric bypass/lapband industry is booming because it works! What happens when people have bypass surgery? They eat 700 to 800 cals a day (if they can even manage that much) and wow...they lose weight!

I imagine the statistics of people below the poverty level eating below 1200 calories is VERY low considering that the rate of obesity is highest at that socioeconomic level.

or perhaps there is a correlation between not being able to afford a nutritious diet and being overweight...?

correlation is not causation

People say that (perhaps not you) in order to undermine the validity of what someone said far too frequently. Yes, to say that "not being able to afford a nutritious diet" and "being overweight" correlate with each other does not mean that the first causes the second (although, you also can't say that it doesn't cause it without further evidence, either), but it does mean that it's something that worth further study. Correlation is correlation for a reason, right?

True. I can agree upon that:) I was not trying to undermine the validity of her statement. Yes there is a coorelation and it hasn't been proven either way. I was simply implying that it was a coorelation, but not the pinpointed cause.

I imagine the statistics of people below the poverty level eating below 1200 calories is VERY low considering that the rate of obesity is highest at that socioeconomic level.

or perhaps there is a correlation between not being able to afford a nutritious diet and being overweight...?

correlation is not causation

People say that (perhaps not you) in order to undermine the validity of what someone said far too frequently. Yes, to say that "not being able to afford a nutritious diet" and "being overweight" correlate with each other does not mean that the first causes the second (although, you also can't say that it doesn't cause it without further evidence, either), but it does mean that it's something that worth further study. Correlation is correlation for a reason, right?

True. I can agree upon that:) I was not trying to undermine the validity of her statement. Yes there is a coorelation and it hasn't been proven either way. I was simply implying that it was a coorelation, but not the pinpointed cause.

I deliberately said the word correlation instead of talking in absolutes. So your comment was unnecessary. The idea (from original quote) that people living below the poverty line are stuffing their faces & are therefore obese is... an ignorant one, to say the least.

However, in a forum where people insist that different foods have no impact whatsoever on health, I don't expect to win any arguments promoting the virtues of access to fresh fruit & veg vs the $1 menu at fast food restaurants.

"Starvation mode" is a myth perpetuated by the food industry to trick gullible people into eating more than they need to. This keeps food sales as well as fad diet sales high.

Myth? Nope. Misdiagnosed by idiots? Sure.

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/nutritional_disorders/undernutrition/protein-energy_undernutrition.html

Starvation is the result of a severe or total lack of nutrients needed for the maintenance of life.

Starvation is very real and has a medical diagnosis. The question should be "At what calorie intake relative to BMR actually leads to the physiological state of starvation?" Is it a continuum? Or is there a biochemical threshold at which the body says, "**** it, I'm starving" ? Can this threshold be described in terms of a biological pathway that can be demonstrated in a lab?

The answer:

Laboratory tests are required if dietary history does not clearly indicate inadequate caloric intake. Measurement of serum albumin, total lymphocyte count, CD4+ T lymphocytes, transferrin, and response to skin antigens may help determine the severity of PEU (see Table 3: Undernutrition: Values Commonly Used to Grade the Severity of Protein-Energy UndernutritionTables) or confirm the diagnosis in borderline cases. Many other test results may be abnormal: eg, decreased levels of hormones, vitamins, lipids, cholesterol, prealbumin, insulin-like growth factor-1, fibronectin, and retinol-binding protein. Urinary creatine and methylhistidine levels can be used to gauge the degree of muscle wasting. Because protein catabolism slows, urinary urea level also decreases. These findings rarely affect treatment.

The usage of the word "severity" would imply that starvation has a "yes" or "no" diagnosis, but that there are also varying degrees of starvation, some being more severe than others, the most severe being death, the least severe being... I don't know?

The other assumption being made is that starvation, regardless of the severity, is a "bad" thing. That may not be the case due to the hormetic effects of being in a fasted state, or a risk/reward calculation. It might be better to starve to lose weight (gastric bypass) than risk the health negatives of not starving (eating too much and dying of a heart attack).

The debate isn't about whether starvation exists or not, or whether you will lose "weight" on a VLCD, but what the optimal way to lose weight is. You absolutely will lose mass if you cut calories to a severe deficit, and the loss will be directly related to caloric intake, but if that mass isn't 100% fat mass, then the overall loss in mass is misleading.

The OP assumes that the relationship between calorie intake and fat loss is linear, when it clearly is not. You could absolutely consume more calories, lose less overall mass, but lose the same amount of fat mass. It is a basic mathematical optimization problem. There is a point of inflection at which the variables of fat loss and caloric intake are maximized and "starvation" symptoms are minimized.