Just when I thought I'd heard it all.....

[Lone Star]

Just when I thought I'd heard it all, this came up:

70 years without eating? 'Starving yogi' says it's true

Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 7:00 PM PT

By Brian Alexander

Prahlad Jani, an 82-year-old Indian yogi, is making headlines by claims that for the past 70 years he has had nothing -- not one calorie -- to eat and not one drop of liquid to drink. To test his claims, Indian military doctors put him under round-the-clock observation during a two-week hospital stay that ended last week, news reports say. During that time he didn’t ingest any food or water – and remained perfectly healthy, the researchers said.

But that’s simply impossible, said Dr. Michael Van Rooyen an emergency physician at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an associate professor at the medical school, and the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative – which focuses on aid to displaced populations who lack food and water.

Van Rooyen says that depending on climate conditions like temperature and humidity, a human could survive five or six days without water, maybe a day or two longer in extraordinary circumstances. We can go much longer without food – even up to three months if that person is taking liquids fortified with vitamins and electrolytes.

Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican convicted of firearms possession and imprisoned by the British, died in 1981 on the 66th day of his hunger strike. Gandhi was also known to go long stretches without food, including a 21-day hunger strike in 1932.

Jani, dubbed "the starving yogi" by some, did have limited contact with water while gargling and periodically bathing, reported the news wire service AFP. While researchers said they measured what he spit out, Van Rooyen said he's clearly getting fluid somehow.

"You can hold a lot of water in those yogi beards. A sneaky yogi for certain," he said. "He MUST take in water. The human body cannot survive without it." The effects of food and water deprivation are profound, Van Rooyen explained. “Ultimately, instead of metabolizing sugar and glycogen [the body’s energy sources] you start to metabolize fat and then cause muscle breakdown. Without food, your body chemistry changes. Profoundly malnourished people autodigest, they consume their own body’s resources. You get liver failure, tachycardia, heart strain. You fall apart.”

The yogi, though, would already be dead from lack of hydration. If he really went without any liquids at all, his cardiovascular system would have collapsed. “You lose about a liter or two of water per day just by breathing,” Van Rooyen said. You don’t have to sweat, which the yogi claims he never does. That water loss results in thicker blood and a drop in blood pressure.

“You go from being a grape to a raisin,” Van Rooyen said and if you didn’t have a heart attack first, you’d die of kidney failure.

I'm not sure which is more worrisome, those that make the claim, or those that 'defend' it...

[Chief1C]

Hell, if I go even eight hours w/o eating on a warm day, I have some degree of profound hypoglycemia. Even if I drink water all day, that ain't gonna do anything but make it worse.

[Richard B the EMT]

I am trying to check my resources, but I have vague memories of a woman supposedly made a similar claim, but she "survived" by breathing. Not solid or liquid consumption, but nourishment from whatever was in the air! I think she called herself an Airian, but don't hold too close to the concept, or my mangled memory of the name (or it's spelling). She subsequently died a few months after I had seen the original article.

If surviving on nutrition suspended in the atmosphere were possible, you'd always find me downwind of the neighborhood steak house!

[itku2er]

Wonder if his diet will work for me? I don't really buy this one but he did have "medical observation" I am the same way as chris is if i dont eat something my blood sugar drops big time.

[Lone Star]

I am trying to check my resources, but I have vague memories of a woman supposedly made a similar claim, but she "survived" by breathing. Not solid or liquid consumption, but nourishment from whatever was in the air! I think she called herself an Airian, but don't hold too close to the concept, or my mangled memory of the name (or it's spelling). She subsequently died a few months after I had seen the original article.

If surviving on nutrition suspended in the atmosphere were possible, you'd always find me downwind of the neighborhood steak house!

Rich,

After doing some research, I came up with the subject of Breatharainism. I think this might be what you were referring to.

*DISCLAIMER*:: I am supplying this link for 'informational purposes only', I do NOT endorse, advocate or otherwise support this behavior!

Breatharianism

[spenac]

So Lone if you ride a motorcycle with your mouth open would a Breatharain get full faster?

Edited May 12, 2010 by spenac

[Lone Star]

So Lone if you ride a motorcycle with your mouth open would a Breatharain get full faster?

Yeah, they would; but it wouldn't count....bug guts has nutritional and caloric value, so therefore since they partook of 'that matter called food', they could no longer be considered a 'Breatharian' any longer. A true 'Breatharian' draws sustinance from prana only.

I wonder.....would that be what they consider 'fasting'?

[under-dreaming]

Article

A 15-day ‘observational study' conducted by the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) under the Defence Research and Development Organisation on Prahlad Jani, better known as “Mataji,” concluded on Thursday.

DIPAS Director G. Ilavezhagen told journalists here that the study was to understand how a person could survive without food and water and without passing urine or stools for a long time.

“A scientific understanding of the mechanism of such survival may help in working out survival strategies under stressful and extreme conditions. This may have applications during natural calamities and disasters,” he said.

The Defence Ministry was particularly interested to know if his “survival mechanism” could be explained in scientific terms, and whether it could be replicated for defence personnel doing duty in difficult areas where maintaining regular supply channels at times become difficult.

Dr. Ilavezhagen said the DIPAS would draw a conclusion on the survival mechanism only after critically analysing the reports of tests carried out during April 22-May 6. “Some medical parameters may take two weeks to study and a few others may take two months before we can draw any conclusion,” he said. The team would meet periodically to discuss the findings and draw “valid conclusions,” he said.

Top scientists from the DIPAS and a team of 35 “super specialist doctors” conducted the study at the Sterling Hospital here. The “study protocol” was cleared by the “ethics committee” of the DIPAS and Sterling Hospital and was “strictly followed” to ensure that the “privacy, safety, security and dignity” of Mr. Jani was “not compromised” at any stage.

Because no insurance company would accept to cover the risk for the 82-year-old Jani during the study, the Gujarat government agreed to stand guarantee up to Rs. 15 lakh in case of any exigency.

CCTV cameras

Mr. Jani, who lived in the temple town of Ambaji in north Gujarat, was brought to the Sterling Hospital and was constantly watched through closed-circuit television cameras. The doctors carried out periodical checks of all his medical parameters. Because he did not take any food or water, the only condition he set for the team was not to carry out any “invasive” tests that would require him to consume water or any other fluid. He took occasional baths and gargled.

Mr. Jani's disciples claim that he has not taken any food or water and not passed urine or stools for the last 76 years. According to them he survived on “solar energy.” They claimed that when he was eight years old, Goddess Amba Mata appeared before him in Pune, “touched” his tongue with a finger and since then he had never felt the urge to eat or drink. “I did not give up food or water, nature has taken it away from me. I don't feel the need for it,” Mr. Jani said. He said he had “nothing to prove” but agreed to undergo the study as it could help human beings at large.

Dr. Ilavezhagen said during the period he was under observation, he did not consume any food or water, nor passed urine or stools. However, it would be too early to draw any conclusion about his “survival mechanism.” He said people were known to have lived without food or water for a longer period, “but it does surprise us that he can survive without passing urine or stools,” he said.

Both Dr. Ilavezhagen and the head of the medical team, Sudhir Shah, said no appreciable change in the medical parameters was observed. “If a person starts fasting, there will be some changes in his metabolism, but in his case we did not find any,” Dr. Ilavezhagen said. “Clinical, biochemical, radiological and other relevant examinations were done on him. All findings were within the safe range,” he said.

Dr. Shah said the team “practically studied almost all his systems” and found them functioning almost normally. The brain MRI was normal. Functioning of motor and sensory nerves, lungs, heart, and every other system were found normal “for his age.” “No features suggestive of any psychiatric disorder were observed during the period,” he said.

The study was an extension of a similar one conducted on him in the same hospital, also by the DIPAS in 2003, but this time it was carried out with more modern equipment and medical aids, Dr. Ilavezhagen said.

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I am looking forward to the final research paper on this one.

[Richard B the EMT]

Thank you, Lone Star. That is actually what I was referring to.

[CBEMT]

Love to know what his blood chemistry looks like.