Vitamin therapy aids fasting recovery

[Guest guest]

Magician helps nutrition therapy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3734060.stm

David Blaine spent five days in hospital after the stunt

Living in a box for 44 days and running seven marathons in a week may,

at first sight, have little to do with ensuring more ordinary mortals

eat and exercise properly.

* David Blaine's 44 day-fast and Sir Ranulph Fiennes' example of extreme

endurance showed how the body behaves under such circumstances.

 

But experts who were involved in the high-profile projects say they also

offered clues as to how diet and exercise should be managed for everyone.

 

Doctors will present their findings to a conference at the Royal College

of Physicians in London on Tuesday.

 

An estimated 18 to 40% of hospital patients are believed to be

under-nourished.

 

Jeremy Powell-Tuck, who is professor of clinical nutrition at Barts and

the London Queen Mary School of Medicine, treated magician David Blaine

after he emerged after 44 days suspended in a Perspex box above London.

 

Professor Powell-Tuck supervised the " re-feeding " period, where Blaine's

body was gradually re-introduced to food again, and he monitored the

effects for the eight months it took David Blaine to get back to his

original weight.

 

 

David Blaine had lost 25% of his bodyweight, but he still had a healthy

body mass index

Professor Jeremy Powell-Tuck, Barts and the London

He told BBC News Online it was useful to be able to study someone who

was malnourished, but who was not affected by disease.

 

" David Blaine had lost 25% of his bodyweight, but he still had a healthy

body mass index " , he said.

 

Body mass index (BMI) is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by

the square of your height in metres.

 

Blaine's BMI was 21.6 when he emerged from the box - which would

normally be classed as healthy - but it had fallen from 29.

 

Professor Powell-Tuck added: " It shows doctors need to ask what a

person's normal weight is and what their weight is now. If they have

lost more than 10% of their bodyweight, there is a problem. "

 

David Blaine also became deficient in B vitamins.

 

" It showed that in just 44 days, someone can become dangerously

deficient in B vitamins, which can lead to short-term problems.

 

" And if someone is undergoing re-feeding treatment in hospital, it is

important they are also given vitamins, which doesn't always happen. "

 

'Evolutionary origins'

 

The conference will also hear from Dr Mike Stroud of the Institute of

Nutrition in Southampton.

 

Dr Stroud said: " I have shown that, when you're doing a great deal of

exercise, the idea that exercise cannot induce weight loss is ridiculous.

 

" I was eating 5,500 calories a day when I crossed the Antarctic - but I

lost three stone. "

 

" It's an extreme example, but it shows that the idea that weight loss is

all about diet and not activity has been over-emphasised. "

 

Dr Stroud said the chances of an overweight but active individual having

a serious heart attack or stroke are raised by only 20% compared to a

lean active individual, whereas an inactive lean individual is close to

being at 300% greater risk.

 

He said people should not focus on having to go to the gym to lose

weight, but should build exercise - such as walking - into their

everyday lives.

 

Professor Peter Kopelman, Chair of the RCP's Nutrition Committee said

the conference would help raise the profile of a topic which received

too little attention

 

" Nutrition remains a Cinderella subject for many health professionals.

 

" Doctors all too often fail to recognise the contribution that

malnutrition, whether it be under- or over-nutrition, makes to disease

processes. "

 

He said the conference would also examine how to address the epidemic of

obesity in terms of prevention and management. ====================

Blaine's fasting stunt hailed for 'insights'

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14 & click_id=117 & art_id=qw1097598780173B216

October 12 2004 at 07:35PM

 

London - When United States magician David Blaine starved himself for 44

days last year inside a glass box suspended over London, many condemned

the stunt as pointless. Not so, say doctors specialising in malnutrition.

 

The medics who treated Blaine after his fast ended last October said

Tuesday that they had been able to gain valuable insights into how to

treat hunger strikers and others who have starved themselves.

 

Blaine's emaciated frame had been a goldmine of information as to how

the human body copes with extreme hunger, said Jeremy Powell-Tuck,

professor of clinical nutrition at Queen Mary's School of Medicine in

London.

 

The illusionist was seriously low on peptides, or protein building

blocks, as well as blood phosphates, and was suffering from vitamin

deficiency and weight loss, Powell-Tuck told a conference in London.

 

However, Blaine recovered well, showing how a short-term re-feeding

programme can help a starved person return to normal eating patterns.

 

Vitamins were a key part of this process, Powell-Tuck told the Nutrition

and Obesity Conference at the Royal College of Physicians.

 

" Unfortunately there are still some doctors who are carrying out the

re-feeding process, particularly in the context of intravenous feeding,

without any use of vitamin supplements, " he said.

 

" This is totally irresponsible. Vitamins should be a part of any

hospitalised re-feeding process. "

 

It was very rare to be able to study a patient who was under-nourished

through self-imposed starvation, Powell-Tuck added.

 

" Normally protesters will not allow physicians to take blood and urine

samples, " he said.

 

" So we've been very lucky that David was so willing to assist in our

research. All of the fasting tests were done with a great deal of

goodwill from David. "

 

Blaine spent his fast in a small perspex box suspended above London's

River Thames, taking only water for 44 days.

 

He endured not only extreme hunger but also ridicule from some Britons,

who shouted abuse, drove golf balls at the box from nearby Tower Bridge,

and in one case used a remote-control model helicopter to dangle a

cheeseburger in front of the starving entertainer. - Sapa-AFP