Top 10 cases of the longest periods of fasting. Hunger is a condition of the body caused by an insufficient intake of substances necessary to maintain homeostasis.
1
In 1973, seemingly incredible periods of fasting by two women were documented at a medical facility in the city of Glasgow.
Both women weighed more than 100 kg. In order to lose weight, one of them had to fast for 236 days, while the other fasted for a full 249 days – a world record.
2
A prolonged fast lasting 119 days was documented by American doctors in Los Angeles, California. They observed an obese patient named Elaine Jones, who weighed 143 kg. During the fast, she drank 3 liters of water every day. In addition, she received vitamin injections twice a week. After 17 weeks, the patient’s weight had dropped to 81 kg, and she reportedly felt perfectly well.
3
A unique case of fasting occurred in the Irish city of Cork. A group of 11 Irish patriots, led by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, declared an indefinite hunger strike while in prison as a protest against British rule in their country. Day after day, newspapers reported news from the prison, and by the 20th day they began claiming that the prisoners were dying, that a priest had already been summoned, and that the prisoners’ relatives had gathered at the prison gates. Similar reports appeared on the 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th and 70th days. However, the first prisoner, MacSwiney, died only on the 74th day; the second died on the 88th day. On the 94th day, the remaining nine prisoners ended their hunger strike, gradually regained their weight, and survived.
4
In Odesa, a completely emaciated woman was brought to Dr. V. Ya. Davydov at the specialized department of therapeutic fasting and diet therapy of a hospital. It turned out that she had been fasting for 90 days with the intention of committing suicide, losing 60% of her body weight during that time. An experienced doctor managed to restore the woman’s health and her will to live.
5
In the winter of 1963, a private aircraft crashed in a mountainous area of North America. There were two people on board: 42-year-old pilot Ralph Flores and 21-year-old student Helen Klaben. The aircraft had enough food for one week, but after 7 days it ran out, and after 20 days the two had eaten their last tube of toothpaste. Melted snow became their only source of sustenance for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“For the following weeks,” Helen Klaben later recalled, “we lived on water. We had it in three forms: cold, hot, and boiled.” Ms. Klaben lost 12 kg in weight. Ralph Flores lost 16 kg. They were rescued on March 25, 1963, 49 days after the crash.
6
In 1984, 52-year-old Paulus Normantas was forced to survive for 55 days on an uninhabited island in the Aral Sea after his boat was carried away by the current.
It happened in March. His food supplies consisted of half a loaf of bread, a few grams of tea, 22 pieces of sugar, and 6 onions.
The “Robinson Crusoe” obtained fresh water from the streams brought by the spring flood. He ate seagull eggs, turtles, and even fish, which he shot with a speargun. When the sea water warmed to above +16°C in spring, Normantas swam 20 km over four days, resting on 16 intermediate islands, and safely reached the shore without outside assistance.
7
During the World War 2, in July 1942, four Soviet sailors found themselves in a lifeboat far from shore in the Black Sea without supplies of food or water. On the third day of their voyage, they began drinking seawater. The Black Sea is about twice less salty than the world’s oceans. Nevertheless, the sailors were able to adapt to drinking it only by the fifth day. Each of them eventually drank up to two canteens a day. In this way, they seemingly solved their water problem. However, they were unable to solve the problem of obtaining food. One of them died of starvation on the 19th day, the second on the 24th, and the third on the 30th day. The last of the four, Medical Service Captain P. I. Yereshko, was rescued on the 36th day of fasting by a Soviet naval vessel while in an altered state of consciousness. During 36 days of drifting at sea without food, he lost 22 kg, which amounted to 32% of his original body weight.
8
In January 1960, a self-propelled barge carrying four Soviet servicemen — A. Ziganshin, F. Poplavsky, A. Kryuchkovsky, and I. Fedotov — was swept into the Pacific Ocean by a storm. On the second day, the barge ran out of fuel and its radio stopped working. After 37 days, their very limited food supply ran out. It was replaced by roasted pieces of leather from an accordion and their boots. Their daily ration of fresh water was initially five sips per person, and later only three. Nevertheless, this proved sufficient to keep them alive for 49 days until they were rescued.
9
In 1984, a group of volunteers led by Genrikh Ryzhavsky and Candidate of Medical Sciences Valery Gurvich undertook a 15-day “emergency” journey by kayak along the Belaya River. They set off without any food and consumed nothing but water. They nevertheless had to paddle for 6–8 hours a day. All participants successfully completed the challenge, even though the oldest of them was 57 years old. A year earlier, another group of enthusiasts had completed a similar two-week “hunger expedition” on rafts across the Caspian Sea.
10
In 1982–1983, six intrepid explorers spent eight months traveling along the Arctic frontier of Eurasia, covering a distance of 10,000 km. During the final two weeks of this extraordinary expedition, two of the participants voluntarily fasted, consuming only rosehip tea with multivitamins. During the fasting period, they lost 4.5 kg of body weight.
