2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29
Perhaps it is rare to meet a person who at least once in his life does not undergo some kind of diet. This is something completely normal and natural.
Our body is adapted to this to some extent. It creates reserves of energy, which it uses if necessary.
But do we not harm ourselves if we starve too long?
To survive during diet and starvation, the body goes into "economy mode", the rate of basic metabolism is reduced to 15 kcal per kilogram of body weight per day, ie. a person spends only about 1000 kcal per day on a basic metabolism.
During hunger the most important thing is to satisfy the energy needs of the tissues, ie. maintaining the level of glucose and fatty acids in the blood. Usually the only source of energy for the brain is glucose. During fasting, the body uses up its glucose stores for about 20 hours and tries to break down more fat. Thus, starvation, which lasts more than 24 hours, poses a serious threat to our health.
If starvation last longer, it puts a lot of stress on the body and harms it. The brain and other glucose-dependent tissues need glucose anyway, and the body begins to use protein to produce it. The body tries to avoid the breakdown of proteins as much as possible, because proteins are involved in a number of vital functions, for example, they are part of antibodies.
Therefore, excessive use of protein as an energy source reduces the body's nutritional efficiency and immunity. During fasting the body switches to the use of fatty acids and ketone bodies, and only when the amount of fatty acids is critically low does the intensity of protein breakdown increase.
If there is a glucose deficiency, the oxidation of fatty acids is incomplete and the liver increases the production of ketone bodies from residual compounds. After 3-4 days of fasting, the biosynthesis of ketone bodies increases 10-30 times, in the fifth week - almost 100 times. Ketone bodies become important sources of energy (including for the brain), thus avoiding the breakdown of proteins.
If starvation continues for a long time, ketogenesis becomes very intense, the overproduction of ketone bodies begins, which do not have time to break down. They begin to accumulate in the bloodstream, the pH of the blood drops and ketoacidosis occurs. Here the negative effect is a decrease in the contractile capacity of the heart, as a result of which the supply of oxygen to the body is disrupted.
When prolonged fasting changes occur in the body aimed at maintaining vital activity for as long as possible. How long a person can starve depends on many circumstances, including fat reserves.
Starvation can cause serious harm and even destroy the intestinal microflora, which has important protective functions. Disorders caused by vitamin and mineral deficiencies, weakened immune systems and tissue damage should also be considered.
Therefore prolonged starvation exhausts the body, damages it and is meaningless, and the consequences can be reflected in years.
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