Starvation: Anatomy of ‘a very cruel, slow death’

People in Gaza and Sudan face famine on a catastrophic scale, the UN and humanitarian organisations are warning.

In Gaza, 27 people – 23 of them children – have starved to death as a result of what international bodies say is Israel’s use of hunger as a weapon of war.

And in Sudan, the World Food Programme (WFP) is already receiving reports of people starving to death and is on course to be “the world’s worst hunger crisis”, a UN briefing to the Security Council warned in March of this year.

What is ‘starvation’?

Starvation, in a few words, is when the human body is deprived of food for so long that it suffers and, often, dies.

“It’s a very cruel, slow death,” Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan, a British Egyptian paediatrician and neurologist who has volunteered in Gaza said. “You basically just waste away.”

For ethical reasons, scientists have been unable to pinpoint how long starvation takes to kill. However, based on observation, it is thought the human body can last up to three weeks without food.

When is someone classified as starving?

Starvation occurs over three stages.

The first starts as early as a skipped meal; the second comes with any prolonged period of fasting when the body relies upon stored fats for energy.

The third, and often fatal, stage is when all stored fats have been depleted and the body turns to bone and muscle as sources of energy.

What happens to the body?

In the early stages, as food is first denied, the body feeds on a starchy substance called glycogen, which is stored in the liver.

Initially, the body relies upon glycogen, before turning to fats and then muscles, causing the body to shrink and the starving person to assume a gaunt, hollow-cheeked look.

The brain is deprived of the energy it requires to function, so the starving person experiences irritability, mood swings and difficulty concentrating.

“Basically, the body just slows down, as it pulls energy from other organs to keep the brain and the heart going,” Abdel-Mannan explained.

The heart’s function will also be affected eventually, with a corresponding drop in blood pressure and pulse.

An adult heart typically weighs about 300g (11oz), but records show that it can shrink to 140g (5oz) in the later stages of starvation.

Eventually, if no infection takes hold in the body, the heart will fail.