Under Eating and Food Behaviors.For educational purposes, here are links to to experiment by Ancel Keyes done during World War II.
An article about anorexia notes that people who have been restricting food may feel full and bloated when eating -- giving a misleading perception that they can survive on less food!
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Though referred to as a the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, subjects during this experiment were eating 1100 to 1500 calories per day.
It has yielded useful information for physicians treating an important group of people who under eat and live long term in total calorie restriction--anoretics.
The rapid and substantial weight loss reported by some friends and spouses of UM devotees does indeed suggest that the UM diet if followed in all its rigor may perhaps, perhaps, elicit a similar state of mind.
Obsession with food. This can be aggravated if it is linked to a cosmology, and if the food rules keep changing. I will quote this in full.
Persons involved with UM devotees can read through this and see if anything here is relevant.
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Ansel Keys’s Minnesota [Semi] Starvation Study
Introduction
The biological reality of our weights and weight control, and the effects of dieting, were clinically demonstrated more than 50 years ago in what remains the definitive research on the subject. The findings in this famous study, revolutionary at the time, have been replicated in the most precise, complicated metabolic studies of food intake behavior, energy expenditure and the biochemistry of fat conducted by the country’s top obesity researchers.
This classic study made the most important contributions to our understanding of dieting, yet surprisingly few consumers today have ever heard of it. It was led by one of the world’s most renowned scientists, Ancel Benjamin Keys, Ph.D., popularly known for inventing K-rations — those indestructible transportable foodstuffs of white crackers, greasy sausage, chocolate and candy — that kept our soldiers alive during World War II.
In the 1940s, when starvation was widespread throughout war-torn Europe, little was known about the effects of human starvation or how to best refeed people who’d suffered from such deprivations. Dr. Keys led the first scientific study of calorie restrictions, at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota, for the War Department. The researchers wanted to understand the medical needs facing millions of starving war victims and how best to renourish and rehabilitate them to health after the war. Their study was known as the Minnesota Starvation Study and the results were published in the legendary two-volume, Biology of Human Starvation (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis, 1950).
The study itself was so comprehensive and intense, however, that even Dr. Keys admitted no other human experiment quite like it will ever be done again because, given what we now know, it would be seen as too cruel and life-threatening. While the degree of suffering the participants underwent would violate what is seen as the ethical rights for human research subjects today, in one respect this study was different from obesity and weight loss research done today. These men were not volunteering because they felt they needed to lose weight for fear that their own lives were endangered, nor were the study authors motivated by personal gain or selling a weight loss program.
The experiment — the starvation syndrome
The 40 young male participants were carefully selected among hundreds of volunteers for being especially psychologically and socially well-adjusted, good-humored, motivated, well-educated, active and healthy.
They were put on calorie-restrictive diets of about 1,600 calorie/day, meant to reflect that experienced in war-torn regions, for 3 months. They dieted to lose 2.5 pounds a week to lose 25% of their natural body weight. The calories were more generous than many weight loss diets prescribe today!
What this study was actually studying, of course, was dieting and restrictive eating — our bodies can’t tell the difference if they’re being semi-starved involuntarily like war victims or voluntarily. During the 3-month nutritional rehabilitation period after the diet, the men were randomly assigned to various nutritional regimens, with differing levels of calories, proteins and vitamins. The men lived at the lab and everything they ate and did was closely monitored, as was their health with a battery of tests. Daily exercise was walking about 3 miles a day.
Physcial effects from the semi-starvation
As the men lost weight, their physical endurance dropped by half, their strength about 10%, and their reflexes became sluggish — with the men initially the most fit showing the greatest deterioration, according to Dr. Keys. The men’s resting metabolic rates declined by 40%, their heart volume shrank about 20%, their pulses slowed and their body temperatures dropped.
They complained of feeling cold, tired and hungry; having trouble concentrating; of impaired judgment and comprehension; dizzy spells; visual disturbances; ringing in their ears; tingling and numbing of their extremities; stomach aches, body aches and headaches; trouble sleeping; hair thinning; and their skin growing dry and thin. Their sexual function and testes size were reduced and they lost all interest in sex. They had every physical indication of accelerated aging.
Psychological effects from the semi-starvation
But the psychological changes that were brought on by dieting, even among these robust men with only moderate calorie restrictions, were the most profound and unexpected.
So much so that Dr. Keys called it “semistarvation neurosis.” The men became nervous, anxious, apathetic, withdrawn, impatient, self-critical with distorted body images and even feeling overweight, moody, emotional and depressed. A few even mutilated themselves, one chopping off three fingers in stress. They lost their ambition and feelings of adequacy, and their cultural and academic interests narrowed.
They neglected their appearance, became loners and their social and family relationships suffered. They lost their senses of humor, love and compassion. Instead, they became obsessed with food, thinking, talking and reading about it constantly; developed weird eating rituals; began hoarding things; consumed vast amounts of coffee and tea; and chewed gum incessantly (as many as 40 packages a day). Binge eating episodes also became a problem as some of the men were unable to continue to restrict their eating in their hunger.
The aftermath
The last part of the Minnesota Starvation Study revealed perhaps the most important effects. When the men were allowed to eat ad libitum again, they had insatiable appetites, yet never felt full. Even five months later, some continued to have dysfunctional eating, although most were finally regaining some normalization of their eating. As they regained their weights, their suppressed metabolism and energy levels returned, although even three months after ending the diet none of the men had yet regained their former physical capacity, noted Dr. Keys.
While it seemed the men were “overeating,” Dr. Keys discovered that their bodies actually needed inordinate amount of calories for their tissues to be rebuilt:
Our experiments have shown that in an adult man no appreciable rehabilitation can take place on a diet of 2,000 calories a day. The proper level is more like 4,000 kcal daily for some months. The character of the rehabilitation diet is important also, but unless calories are abundant, then extra proteins, vitamins and minerals are of little value
In other words, they weren’t really “overeating,” it was a biological, normal effect of hunger and weight loss. The men regained their original weights plus 10%. The regained weight was disproportionally fat, and their lean body mass recovered much more slowly.
With unlimited food and unrestricted eating, their weights plateaued and finally, about 9 months later, most had naturally returned to their initial weights without trying — giving scientists one of the first demonstrations that each body has a natural, genetic set point, whether it be fat or thin.
I have italicized or underlined changes described by persons who live with or have lived with or observed UM devotees.
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Starvation Mode And Anorexia NervosaHow Does Starvation Affect The Body?
Starvation mode triggers complex changes in the body and mind. Understanding the effects of starvation, and how the body responds is critical in the treatment of anorexia and other eating disorders.
Most of us are probably aware that the term starvation mode refers to the body's response to long periods of malnutrition.
It can be thought of as a kind of protection mechanism -- protecting vital organs such as the heart and the brain from atrophy (shrinkage) for as long as possible.
With self starvation or severe malnutrition in anorexia nervosa, the body will eventually burn its fat reserves for energy.
An added complication is that muscle mass begins to deteriorate, and creates a condition known as muscle atrophy.
But, there's more...
Starvation Mode - Understanding Starvation Symptoms
Starvation Mode Photo - T.Schmidt
What are starvation symptoms?
In studies at the University Of Wisconsin-Madison (Carlson, 2001), it was discovered that several anorexic behaviors -- such as food obsessions (or phobias), exercise addiction, and emotional issues -- are not a result of psychiatric conditions or mental illnesses.
Instead, they are actually symptoms of starvation, and the body's way of adapting to its starvation mode. This is especially true in cases of anorexia nervosa, whether or not the person has already been diagnosed.
**In the 1940's, scientist Ancel Keys became "famous" for his study on the physiological and psychological effects of starvation. It was observed that people in starvation mode often become obsessively preoccupied with thoughts of finding, preparing and eating food.
In turn, this can lead to impulsive behaviors such as bingeing, stealing or hoarding food. The potential is there for a therapist to misinterpret these actions as obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms, depression, or even impulse control disorder.
If a doctor or therapist suspects severe starvation in a patient, it is extremely beneficial if they also acknowledge how starvation affects human thoughts and actions. If this is overlooked, there may be a risk of misinterpreting certain behaviors as core psychiatric conditions, when they are actually symptoms of an eating disorder.
This could result in the behaviors being treated as mental illnesses (a "band-aid effect"), while the eating disorder itself is allowed to manifest and spiral out of control.
Starvation Mode - Personality Traits Of Anorexics
It's interesting to note that starvation induces many different thought and behavior patterns. Families often notice that when a loved one is suffering from an eating disorder, their personalities can be dramatically affected. You may have heard the term, "anorexic personality".
They might become rude, sarcastic, avoidant, quiet, or any number of other things.
Personality traits such as perfectionism and emotional sensitivity can be either brought on, or enhanced by the effects of starvation.
Other starvation symptoms might include:
Low heart rate (bradycardia)
Constipation - lazy bowel syndrome
Lanugo
Bloating
Early satiety (feeling full after only small amounts of food)
Some of these conditions are also overlapping symptoms of other illnesses. It's a tough balancing act for physicians and therapists to come to the correct diagnosis, but it is essential if one is to get out of starvation mode, and begin the road to anorexia recovery.
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