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Re: [Phys-L] Fasting Physics

Bill,
Despite the fact that I claim no premium
in physics knowledge compared to list members here,
I would like to help.

You are hungry for science-based strategies for
marshaling energy while fasting.
Here are some thoughts:
medically induced coma reduces muscular activity
and reduces brain activity. There is a danger of
 bed-sores and other pressure injuries from
prolonged bed support.
An elevated ambient temperature decreases the
metabolic energy required to maintain homeostasis.
Lacking experimental verification, I expect that
ambient temperatures approaching 98.6F / 37C may
 well be uncomfortable and promote excess sweating
 with loss of electrolytes - potassium, sodium,
 magnesium... I notice that some prisoners involved
 in a fast, are taking water with sugar and
electrolytes.
Until recently, medical orthodoxy called for
extended bed-rest after surgical trauma
 - Caesarian sections, assorted thoracic &
abdominal insurgencies:  but for a decade or two,
 noting improved outcomes from abbreviated
hospital stays ~ ambulation after a day or
two in hospital is more usual.

Limb immobilization was once de rigeur after a
broken limb was set. Now, the observed muscle
wasting associated with plaster casts is
discouraging this practice. This snippet may
be relevant if you are attempting immobility
 as an energy reduction strategy.

One method used to apply a favorable environment
 that avoids bed-sores is liquid immersion.
This provides the possibility of very low
stress muscle movements. There must be some way
 of reducing the wrinkling associated with
extended immersion. Unfortunately, I am not
 familiar with such methods.

It is found that people and animals seem to
demand at least a few minutes of social contact
with other individuals each day.
Finally, I mention that notably old people have
 been checked for benign factors. One that often
 comes to light is the role of daily exercise
chores; feeding livestock, for example - despite
 the usual lameness that besets us with age..

Having offered these thoughts, I am moved to
 ask what kind of injury, lesion or trauma
 triggered your current course of action?
With this information, more useful advice
might be provoked from the list - though it
 may not be central to physics teaching.

Brian W



On 3/6/2019 2:17 PM, Bill Norwood via Phys-l wrote:
Brian,
1. Interesting info on Fuhrman's history. Thanks.
2. You provide acecdotes which do nothing to disprove Fuhrman's exhustively
documented work.
3. I am still without a simple list of physics-based types of energy
conservation rules useful for fasting.
4. I had thought that you gize, far more knowledgeable in physics than I,
could do this.
5. This is the 17th day of my 30-day fast, and I have a substantial support
system.
6. Some have been alarmed, and I have informed them of:
6a. My self informing on fasting
6b. My logging of everything
6c. My several earlier fasts
6d. My support system
6e. My environmental setup
6f. My understanding of the dramatic danger signals that dictate the ending
of a fast
6g. My opinion that never fasting, esp if serious illness, is far more
dangerous than fasting.
6h. My opinion that the slight possibility of my dying from this fasting
compares with the slight possibility of dying if one takes a ride in an
automobile.
Bill Norwood
Retired 2018,
U of MD Physics at College Park

On Sat, Mar 2, 2019, 7:03 PM brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On 3/1/2019 5:55 PM, Bill Norwood via Phys-l wrote:
/snip/ - What you write makes it clear to me that there is no way, from
either the
standpoint of a physicist's thinking or a chemist's thinking, to put
together an energy expenditure table/list which would be understandable
by
any layman.
- I do not buy it.
- My reaction is that laymen should retract/block funding from the
involved
academics. /snip/
I did not understand this paragraph from Bill's note supporting a
physician's well-publicized ideas on the role of fasting on recovery
from injuries.

It appears that the author in question, Joel Fuhrman MD wrote his book,
Fasting and Eating for Health, after recovering from an injury sustained
while competing in ice figure-skating, and after losing much muscle mass
being excluded from the Olympic team in consequence of this wasting
episode. Twelve years later, with a general practice degree in hand, he
has by now written a number of popular dieting books featuring fasting.

Perhaps I could mention two anecdotes which come to mind in this
connection. A flight instructor with whom I worked, was an enthusiast
for natural eating and derogated the medical approach to cancer for
example, citing poisons and problems with ionizing radiation.
It happened that he developed a cancer in the neck, and resisted
orthodox treatments for the reasons given. After a few months, I was
dismayed to see he was having difficulty speaking because the now
massive growth was pressing on his wind-pipe.
When he stopped working, I was fairly sure I was in his last days.
Imagine my surprise when, several months later, he was working again,
and looking very much normal and unafflicted.
I asked how he had pulled off his convincing recovery. He said that with
his wife's insistence on his seeking medical help,
he reluctantly underwent the usual cancer therapy featuring burning
x-rays, chemo-therapy etc, etc.

The second anecdote: two years ago, my horse, a Morgan gelding,
presented with stumbling, wobbling, seeming deafness and semi-blindness
and an uncharacteristic aversion to human company. These are symptoms of
two serious horse diseases, one viral, the other due to parasitic
invasion of the central nervous system. After examinations by two vets,
and blood sampling for lab tests it was confirmed that the second
alternative was implicated - a disease with a roughly 50% survival rate
- in some cases with subsequent loss of vitality. The horse
recovered, as it happened. I mention the episode because when I could
herd the horse close to a feed tray, he would eat normally, and did so
every day.

I conclude that using evidence based therapy is still not universal, but
using orthodox treatment is the best alternative we have available,
presently. What is more, my horse anecdote is opposed to the
'thousands-of-years' observations of animals fasting to recover from
injury or illness.

Brian W

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Forum for Physics Educators
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