Man starved for 382 days and set a record after incredible weight loss - before and after photos
According to doctors, a person who eats well can live without medical consequences on a diet of sugar and water for 30 days or more. However, a man from Scotland proved that it is possible to go hungry for more than a year.
SSPDaily tells about it.
Angus Barbieri lived without solid food for 382 days. He weighed more than 200 kg when he visited the medical faculty of the Royal Dundee Infirmary in June 1965.
Barbieri told the staff that he wanted to give up eating altogether in an attempt to lose weight, and the doctors agreed to monitor his progress.
According to diabetes.co.uk, the doctors prescribed him a multivitamin and yeast, believing that he would probably have to go without food for a few days at most. But they didn't expect Angus to spend 382 days without food, instead eating drinks such as tea and coffee, soda, and vitamins.
This is definitely a dangerous and unhealthy way to lose weight and should not be "tried at home".
Incredibly, with the exception of low blood glucose levels, Barbieri did not experience any side effects from the extreme diet. However, he only went to the bathroom once every 40-50 days, which was probably quite strange.
When the Scotsman finally relaxed his strict regimen, he preferred to add a pinch of sugar or milk to his hot drinks before breaking his fast at all.
The first meal he ate was a boiled egg with a slice of bread and butter.
"I really liked the egg, and I felt very full," he told reporters.
According to a Chicago Tribune report, he had forgotten what food tasted like after a year of not eating anything at all.
The hunger strike was successful: Barbieri managed to lose from 214 kg to 80 kg and keep the weight off. His experiment was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest hunger strike ever recorded.
Despite his success, experts explained that his case is very unusual and should not be recommended. They explain that because Angus was overweight, his body was prepared for the fast.
"For people of normal weight, prolonged fasting can cause health complications, including increased stress on the heart, even with nutritional supplements," they explained. "Therefore, no one should try to fast for so long. This refers to the period of the 1960s, when prolonged fasts were studied with frequency, but there are other studies from that time in which patients experienced heart failure and in some cases died of starvation."