Discussion:
Physiology case study
My comments are in brackets
A 26 year-old female prisoner begins a hunger strike to protest what she considers unfair prison policies. She drinks only tap water, and her only exercise is two dailyt half hour walks at approx 2.5 mph. The temp in her cell is kept at 72F. her starting weight is 70 kg (154 lbs) of which 14% is body fat. After the end of four weeks her deteriorating condition prompts the prison physician, her family and her friends urge her to stop fasting.
All questions are related to each other:
1. What would u estimate her daily energy expenditure to be and approx how much weight would she have lost in four weeks. [--is there an equation for this?]
2. What would be the approximate distribution of this lost weight in crabohydrate, protein, and fat. What would her respiratory quotient be at the end of the fast (realitve to before fasting)?
3. What early changes in plasma levels of hormones would occur? how would these changes alter or help her energy metabolism? [Hormones more active = higher metabolism?]
4. What other hormonal compensatory mechanisms would be called into play to conserve energy and prolong life?