Re: Human Experiment: The Effects of Starvation on Behavior

Yes it is different I think. But the reason I posted it is because a lot of people here are not purely fasting, for example some may be taking supplements some may be doing alternate day fasting and so on (as indeed I considered). I deliberately didn't comment because I haven't had time to digest it all (pardon the pun), but what I did notice is that a lot of the symptoms those guys had are similar to what we see here sometimes.

Where you draw the line between fasting and starving, others can comment on, but I think it's useful to have as reference material just as a check to see anyone who is not fasting properly may recognize any of the symptoms themselves.

Remember also that experiment was in 1950, it is likely that many people nowadays eat processed food between fasts, with far lower nutrient content per calorie than what those guys were on. So people eat food without enough nutrients and get fat, then fast (zero nutrients) then eat low nutrient food again. And a lot of people that fast to lose weight may want to be eat lightly between fasts, thus exacerbating the problem.

The metabolic set point issue may also be interesting to fasting people who get stuck at a plateau when trying to lose weight.

And of course it's probably a unique study that will never be repeated. It wasn't very ethical offering it as an alternate to national service, I don't think we would do that these days. Well, hopefully not. Tweet