Biochemistry of starvation

Biochemistry

The glycogen storage is used up and the level of insulin in the circulation is low and the level of glucagon is very high. The main means of energy production is lipolysis. The TCA cycle helps the gluconeogenesis convert glycerol and fatty acids the acetyl CoA produces the energy used. Two systems of energy enter the gluconeogenesis, proteolysis provides alanine and lactate produced from pyruvate. Too much Acetyl CoA produces Ketone bodies, which can be detected in an urine exam. The brain starts to use Ketone bodies as a source of energy.
In terms of insulin resistance, starvation conditions makes more glucose available to the brain.


Efforts

Treatment

Starving patients can be treated, but this must be done cautiously to avoid refeeding syndrome.


Prevention

Supporting farmers in areas of food insecurity, through such measures as free or subsidized fertilizers and seeds, increases food harvest and reduces food prices. For example, in Malawi, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid. Then, however, deep fertilizer subsidies and lesser ones for seed, abetted by good rains, helped farmers produce record-breaking corn harvests in 2006 and 2007, according to government crop estimates. Corn production leapt to 2.7 million metric tons in 2006 and 3.4 million in 2007 from 1.2 million in 2005, the government reported.


The harvest also helped the poor by lowering food prices and increasing wages for farm workers. Malawi became a major food exporter, selling more corn to the World Food Program and the United Nations than any other country in Southern Africa. Over the 20 years prior to this change in policy by the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depended on for aid have periodically pressed it to cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, in the name of free market policies even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers.


However, many, if not most, of its farmers are too poor to afford fertilizer at market prices. Proponents for helping the farmers includes the economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has championed the idea that wealthy countries should invest in fertilizer and seed for Africa’s farmers. He also conceived the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), which good seeds, fertilizers, and trains farmers how to use them. In a Kenyan village, where this was experimented, the project resulted in a tripling of its corn harvest, even though the village had previously had a cycle of hunger.