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Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage [1] and eventually, death. The term inanition [2] refers to the symptoms and effects of starvation.
Starvation response in animals (including humans) is a set of adaptive biochemical and physiological changes, triggered by lack of food or extreme weight loss, in which the body seeks to conserve energy by reducing metabolic rate and/or non-resting energy expenditure to prolong survival and preserve body fat and lean mass.
Emaciation can be caused by undernutrition, malaria and cholera, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases with prolonged fever, parasitic infections, many forms of cancer and their treatments, lead poisoning, and eating disorders like anorexia nervosa.
Medications like over-the-counter pain relievers, antidepressants (to help you relax and sleep), and anti-seizure drugs (also to ease pain) may be your first course of action, according to the ...
The syndrome can occur at the beginning of treatment for eating disorders when patients have an increase in calorie intake and can be fatal. It can also occur when someone does not eat for several days at a time usually beginning after 4–5 days with no food. [5] It can also occur after the onset of a severe illness or major surgery. The ...
After this time, the damage to muscles and organs can be permanent and can also eventually cause death, if left untreated. Catabolysis is the last metabolic resort for the body to keep itself — particularly the nervous system—functional. Protein stores, especially in muscle tissue, provide the amino acids needed for the process.
In 1940, Edward S. Dillon, W. Wallace, and Leon S. Smelo, first described alcoholic ketoacidosis as a distinct syndrome. They stated that "because of the many and complex factors, both physiologic and pathologic, which influence the acid-base balance of the body, a multitude of processes may bring about the state of acidosis as an end result". [7]
Physiologist Ancel Keys was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work and the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene which he had founded at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at Harvard's Fatigue Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic.