How long can we live without food and water? Have you ever wondered, tested it yourself or found it in books?
It is said that a person can go 3 weeks without food and 3 days without water and still live. But really, that possibility is very rare. Test yourself, one day you don’t eat breakfast, only 11 o’clock in the afternoon you feel hungry, shaky, tired, tired and hungry. Of course, the duration of tolerance varies from person to person and depends on many factors. In it, the factor of will plays a key role.
Will has helped people to accomplish many miracles in history. So, sitting at home with a fridge full of food is definitely not a good environment for an experiment like this. This article will help you better understand the ability of people to survive without food or water.
The human body is made up of 60% water, 6% minerals, 16% fat, and 18% protein . This is a very sophisticated biological apparatus with many different organs and systems… To function, the “human” apparatus must be supplied with energy, through metabolism, “burning”, oxygen. food, food.
The respiratory system, breathing, is the source of oxygen for “burning”, oxidizing food to create energy and expelling carbon dioxide waste to the outside. The digestive system provides “fuel” which are five essential food groups: carbohydrates (sugars, flours), proteins (proteins), fats (oils, fats), minerals, and vitamins for biological combustion. this energy. Therefore, breathing, eating and drinking are imperative needs for humans to live.
Nutritionists have calculated specific needs for each kilogram of body/day: Minimum energy to maintain life 30 kcal; Water 100-150 ml; Protein 1-2 grams, Fat 3-5 grams, Carbohydrates 6-10 grams. Mineral salts and vitamins are trace elements accompanying the food people use.
Willpower and determination play an important role in a person’s ability to fast. Those who suffer the longest are the politicians on hunger strike or those who fast according to the rituals of some religions, those who are lost in the wild also survive long periods of fasting.
According to research, people can live up to 8 weeks just by drinking water without eating , however, there are people who exceed the 8-week mark, and there are people who die just a few days later. This depends on your health condition. Healthy people, fat people have better tolerance so the possibility of survival is higher. When we are hungry, we use our own reserves of energy to survive. The process of using stored energy begins with the burning of carbohydrates, which are stored in the liver and muscles, then fat and finally protein in the body. If you are so hungry that you have to use protein, then your health situation must have become very bad.
The body’s metabolic capacity also plays a role in determining hunger tolerance . If the metabolism is good, the body can better absorb nutrients. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you have nothing to eat, you would expect the opposite. Metabolism also determines the rate at which the accumulated energy in the body is used. Therefore, the slower the metabolism, the slower the energy expenditure, which will give you a slightly higher chance of survival. When hungry, the body’s metabolism will automatically slow down, this is one of the natural survival instincts of humans.
Ambient temperature also affects your survivability . If the environment is too hot, our body will lose water faster, when it is too cold, we will have to expend more of the body’s energy and therefore, the ability to survive is lower. However, often when the weather is too hot or too cold, there are many other factors that cause us to collapse before starving to death.
At the onset of hunger, the signs your body feels are: fatigue, panic, hand tremors, frustration… After these initial reactions, the senses begin to stall, then begin to kick in. hallucinations, intestinal spasms, muscle spasms, and irregular heartbeats.
One of the famous cases of fasting is the Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. He fasted for 21 days. However, this is not the fasting record of politicians. In 1981, members of the Irish Republican Army, when imprisoned in Britain, organized a hunger strike to protest, they only drank a little water a day, but did not touch food. British Deputy Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was determined not to give in to these political prisoners. As a result, 10 people went on a hunger strike to death, among them, Kieran Doherty was the person with the longest hunger strike, he fasted 73 days before his death.
Humans can survive for a long time without food, but without water you will be knocked down quickly. Children, if left alone in open-air cars or doing heavy labor in the heat, can die within hours without water.
Humans use water in the body for many things such as keeping the mouth and eyes moist, carrying nutrients and oxygen around the body… And we also have a lot of mechanisms to lose water such as defecation – urination, Sweating, crying, and even breathing dehydrate our bodies. Under hot weather, we can lose up to 1.5 liters of water through sweat glands. Dehydration in hot weather can cause us to go into heat stroke, which can be life-threatening.
When you are mildly dehydrated, you will reduce saliva production and also reduce urine output as well as urine at this time has a strange color, unpleasant odor due to concentration. As dehydration becomes more severe, your mouth will become dry, it will be harder to urinate, your eyes will also be dry and sunken, and your heart will beat abnormally fast. When you are severely dehydrated, you are unable to urinate (anuria), hallucinations, irritability, vomiting and diarrhea. The final stage of dehydration is hypovolemic shock, pale skin and cold.
Normal humans can only survive for 3 to 5 days without drinking water , just as without food, healthier people can survive longer. The longest surviving case without drinking water was that of Mitsutaka Uchikoshi of Japan when he had an accident at Mount Rokko in October 2006. Uchikoshi slipped and hit his head and was unconscious for 24 days before being rescued. Rescue team found. When he was discovered, his body was only 22 degrees Celsius, his heart rate was weak, and his organs had stopped working. Doctors who examined Uchikoshi later found no damage to his brain, which, according to the doctors, is a rare case in which humans enter a state of hibernation . It was this that helped Mitsutaka Uchikoshi lucky to escape death.
Sometimes people want to fast to lose weight or for religions, fasting is also to cleanse the body, make people more pure. But you should absolutely never experiment with thirst, because this can cause serious damage to the body.