A year without food One man went to enormous lengths to reduce
the width of his girth. Dr Karl weighs up the effects of fasting
on the body. Back in June of 1965, a Scotsman weighing 207
kilograms, described as "grossly obese" and hereafter known only
as Mr A B, turned up at the Department of Medicine at the Royal
Infirmary in Dundee. He was sick of being fat and wanted to lose
weight by eating nothing and living off his body fat. He told
the hospital staff he was going to fast flat out, whatever they
said, so they may as well monitor him along the way. He ended up
fasting for one year and 17 days — that's right, he ate no food
at all for over a year. He lived entirely off his copious body
fat, in the end losing about 125 kilograms of weight. Treating
obesity by total starvation can be dangerous. There are many
reports of total starvation leading to death. For example, some
people have died of heart failure during the fast, while another
died on the 13th day of his fast from small bowel obstruction.
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