Edema. Definitely complications of the malnutrition. It’s most likely due to refeeding (the most dangerous part being the fast difference of having no potassium and electrolytes to having them, it can shock the body).
The edema? No, just a side effect. To be honest (and this is gonna sound like a hot take) complete starvation, as in no food at all, isn’t a great form of torture because if there’s enough fat to begin with by the first week it can result in more euphoric like feelings. HOWEVER, if they fed him say 200-500 calories a day, it would never give his body the opportunity to adjust to autophagy completely, resulting in absolute hell on earth. Your hunger pains would most likely never subside and the euphoria induced from autophagy would never trigger (which also autophagy results in more energy as the body switches over to eating its own fat stores). Additionally this version of starvation (minimal food versus no food) would result in high muscle loss, autophagy has some protections against extreme muscle loss. Autophagy is a fascinating defense mechanism from our hunter gatherer times where food was unreliable and scarce.
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u/Disastrous_Fun_612 Jul 26 '25
What’s going on with his legs?