Starvation

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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 will 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.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4084676.stm

Symptoms

Starved individuals lose substantial fat and muscle mass as the body breaks down these tissues for energy. Catabolysis is the process (medical condition) of a body breaking down the muscles and other tissues in a body in order to keep vital processes such as nervous system and heart muscle working. Catabolysis will not begin until there are no usable sources of energy coming into the body. Catabolysis will break down muscle tissue before it breaks down fat.

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

Decreased resting metabolic rate (RMR)
Drop in sex hormones
Decreased sexual interest
Amenorrhoea (no menses)
Lanugo (growth of insulating hair)
Bone loss
Constipation and gastrointestinal upset
Sleep disorder
Muscle weakness
Hypothermia
Loss of lean body mass
Changes in brain chemistry regulating appetite and food cravings

Behavioral

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
Less pickiness about tastes
Binge eating

Cognitive

Decreased concentration
Poor judgement
Apathy

Emotional and social

Depression
Anxiety
behavior
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.

In ancient Greco-Roman societies, starvation was sometimes use to dispose of guilty upper class citizens, especially erring female members of patrician families. For instance, in the year 31 AD, Livilla, niece and daughter-in-law of Tiberius, was discreetly starved to death by her mother for her adulterous relationship with Sejanus and for her complicity in the murder of her own husband, Drusus the Younger.

Another daughter-in-law of Tiberius, named Agrippina the Elder (a granddaughter of Augustus and the mother of Caligula) also died of starvation, in 33 AD (however, it is not clear if she voluntary starved herself to death or if she was forced to).

A son and a daughter of this Agrippina were also executed by starvation for political reasons: Drusus Caesar, her second son, was put in prison in 33 AD and starved to death on the orders of Tiberius (he managed to stay alive for nine more days by chewing the stuffing of his bed); Agrippina's younger daughter, called Julia Livilla, was exiled on an island in 41 AD by her uncle, the emperor Claudius, and not much later, her death by starvation was arranged by the empress Messalina.

Execution by starvation was also a possible punishment for Vestal Virgins found guilty of breaking their vows.

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.

External links

Humanitarian aid | Malnutrition | Poverty | Execution methods | Causes of death

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