Starvation
Starvation is a severe reduction in vitamin, nutrient, and energy intake, and is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation (in excess of 1-2 months) causes permanent organ damage and may eventually result in death.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 25,000 people die of starvation every day, more than 800 million people are chronically undernourished. On average, every five seconds a child dies from starvation.
Symptoms
Starved individuals lose substantial fat and muscle mass as the body turns to these tissues for energy. The skin's pale and dry appearance accompanies this emaciation.
Vitamin deficiency is common, often resulting in anemia, beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy. These diseases collectively may cause diarrhea, skin rashes, edema, and heart failure. Individuals are often irritable, fatigued, and lethargic as a result.
Effects
Physical Effects
- Decreased resting metabolic rate (RMR)
- Drop in sex hormones
- Decreased sexual interest
- Amenorrhea (no menses)
- Bone loss
- Constipation and gastrointestinal upset
- Sleep disturbance
- Weakness
- Hypothermia
- Loss of lean body mass
- Changes in brain chemistry regulating appetite and food cravings
Effects on attitutes and behaviour
- Preoccupation with food - collecting recipes
- Unusual eating habits
- Increased consumption of fluids
- Increased use of spices
- Loss of the body's natural mechanisms for regulating hunger and fullness
- Dichotomous thinking about food (food is divided into 'good' and 'bad' groups)
- Binge eating
Cognitive effects
- Decreased concentration
- Poor judgement
- Apathy
Emotional and social effects
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Irritability and anger
- Lability (constantly changing moods)
- Psychotic episodes
- Personality changes
- Social withdrawal
Treatment
Starvation is usually treated by slowly increasing food intake until no nutrient deficiencies remain. By this time, the diet of a recovering individual should consist of 5,000 calories and twice the Recommended Dietary Allowance of nutrients. Starvation is a result of malnutrition.
Capital punishment
Starvation has always been a means to carry a death sentence. From the beginning of civilization through to the Middle Ages people were immured and starved to death.
Rajmund Kolbe, a Polish friar, offered his life to save another inmate sentenced to death in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was starved along with another nine inmates. After two weeks of starvation he and three other inmates were still alive and executed with injections of phenol.
Ugolino della Gherardesca, his sons and other members of his family were immured in the Muda, a tower of Pisa, and starved to death in the thirteenth century. Dante, his contemporary, wrote about Gherardesca in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy.
In Cornwall in 1671, there is a recorded case of a man by the name of John Trehenban from St Columb Major who was condemned to be starved to death in a cage at Castle An Dinas for the murder of two girls.