Monday, May 10, 2010 11:52:41 PM
70 years without eating? 'Starving yogi' says it's true
Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 7:00 PM PT
By Brian Alexander
http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/10/2299480.aspx
Prahlad Jani, an 82-year-old Indian yogi, is making headlines by claims that for the past 70 years he has had nothing -- not one calorie -- to eat and not one drop of liquid to drink. To test his claims, Indian military doctors put him under round-the-clock observation during a two-week hospital stay that ended last week, news reports say. During that time he didn’t ingest any food or water – and remained perfectly healthy, the researchers said.
But that’s simply impossible, said Dr. Michael Van Rooyen an emergency physician at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an associate professor at the medical school, and the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative – which focuses on aid to displaced populations who lack food and water.
Van Rooyen says that depending on climate conditions like temperature and humidity, a human could survive five or six days without water, maybe a day or two longer in extraordinary circumstances. We can go much longer without food – even up to three months if that person is taking liquids fortified with vitamins and electrolytes.
Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican convicted of firearms possession and imprisoned by the British, died in 1981 on the 66th day of his hunger strike. Gandhi was also known to go long stretches without food, including a 21-day hunger strike in 1932.
Sterling Hospitals / AFP - Getty Images file
Prahlad Jani was studied for two weeks.
Jani, dubbed "the starving yogi" by some, did have limited contact with water while gargling and periodically bathing, reported the news wire service AFP. While researchers said they measured what he spit out, Van Rooyen said he's clearly getting fluid somehow.
"You can hold a lot of water in those yogi beards. A sneaky yogi for certain," he said. "He MUST take in water. The human body cannot survive without it." The effects of food and water deprivation are profound, Van Rooyen explained. “Ultimately, instead of metabolizing sugar and glycogen [the body’s energy sources] you start to metabolize fat and then cause muscle breakdown. Without food, your body chemistry changes. Profoundly malnourished people autodigest, they consume their own body’s resources. You get liver failure, tachycardia, heart strain. You fall apart.”
The yogi, though, would already be dead from lack of hydration. If he really went without any liquids at all, his cardiovascular system would have collapsed. “You lose about a liter or two of water per day just by breathing,” Van Rooyen said. You don’t have to sweat, which the yogi claims he never does. That water loss results in thicker blood and a drop in blood pressure.
“You go from being a grape to a raisin,” Van Rooyen said and if you didn’t have a heart attack first, you’d die of kidney failure.
Comments
What this ogi is doing has been done by yogi's for millenia. It is an amazing feat in that it is real and it took this particular man an almost inconcievable of discipline to achieve. Our physicists are just beginning to skim the finest surface of understanding of our human potential and while going without food for so long may not seem to serve a purpose - it is one of many ways to make the journey inward that we all must make eventually. We are all connected and when one achieves the level of discipline and inward seeking that this man has - it is for all of us.
John Patton (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:27 PM)
My Bull $hit meter is pinging in the red zone on this one
us2insanmarcos@yahoo.com (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:27 PM)
What western medicine fails to recognize is that the human body has many secrets and capacities that few have explored. The human organism is not merely mechanical. And the capacity of the universe to surprise us with the unexpected should make modern doctors be more humble. For example: doctors dismissed germ theory as bunk just a 150 years ago. "Wash my hands? What rubbish." Be open minded and humble you masters of medicine and the knife!!
Chuck Henderson (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:28 PM)
Mabye theres a chees burger in that beard and a bottle of water under his chin?
Mark Seattle WA (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:29 PM)
This can be a real event where a person gains his energy from other sources which are not nutritional in the usual sense. A term sometimes used is "breathers" getting energy from the prana in the environment.
F, Jackson, MS (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:30 PM)
"sneaky yogi" lol
C Norris, AZ (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:31 PM)
Just another "breathairian... one who survives only by breathing air. This myth has been around a long time. Just wait long enough, and you'll see them sneaking in a twinky.
R W Arnold (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:31 PM)
We are spiritual being just having human experience..... and for many yogis that can transcend this dimension and exist in the 4th dimension which is beyond man's common understand.
It not just about logic or reality because logic and reality in the 4th dimension is the illusion.
It may truly be an example of mind over matter. These are things that enligtened being have been doing since the beginning of time...Jesus stated,"You will do things even greater than I".
Study Quantum Physics......
Dr. Elon Bomani
www.elonbomani.com
Dr. Elon Bomani, Missouri City, Tx. (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:32 PM)
Science, as a belief system
"But that’s simply impossible, said Dr. Michael Van Rooyen"
Evidence not withstanding.
Steve, Middletown, NY (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:38 PM)
Wow, the lengths people will go to get some attention. I suppose Jani has some higher calling so that's why he is depriving himself of food and drink. I couldn't or wouldn't want to go the weekend.
Jay F. (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:40 PM)
Simply ridiculous.
C.C. Upstate, NY (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:41 PM)
demons lie
don wall monroe la (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:42 PM)
India is full of phony magicians. What I want to know is this: What is his relationship to the "researchers" and why are they knowingly publicizing a fraud?
Eric, USA (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:42 PM)
What Dr. Michael Van Rooyen says is based on the science as we know it now. But the science today is like a monkey trying to reach the moon and not getting beyond the top of the trees.
I have personally witnessed the things in India that science CAN'T explain. I, thinking that I know it all based on science, challenged the validity of these phenomena and came out surrendering.
Dr. Van Rooyen knows some science based on physical laws of nature, but has no idea of the subtle laws of nature. He and the humanity has a long way to go before science and religion meet at one point.
Shanker (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:43 PM)
Is he drinking his own urine?
Daniel, Carthage, MS (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:43 PM)
What Dr. Michael Van Rooyen says is based on the science as we know it now. But the science today is like a monkey trying to reach the moon and not getting beyond the top of the trees.
I have personally witnessed the things in India that science CAN'T explain. I, thinking that I know it all based on science, challenged the validity of these phenomena and came out surrendering.
Dr. Van Rooyen knows some science based on physical laws of nature, but has no idea of the subtle laws of nature. He and the humanity has a long way to go before science and religion meet at one point.
Shanker (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:44 PM)
Does the Yogi urinate? When heated, does he sweat? Are there feces in his intestinal tract? If nobody in the two weeks found or checked for any of the above (and more), they were all in on the hoax in some way.
Barry (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:45 PM)
Is this the same Yogi that came up with the rope trick, or the milk that came from the elephants trunk?
Paul, Milwaukee, WI (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:49 PM)
This is nothing but bullshit. These so called 'yogis' are nothing but fraudsters.
John Doe, Seattle, Wash (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:49 PM)
I guess he's never taken a "crap or a piss" either? Huh? Why didn't they throw that in there?
Hey! Maybe he can get on "Dancing with the Stars"!!!!!!!!
raymond banner san antonio tx (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:52 PM)
Claimed he hasn’t eaten in 70 years? Was observed for 2 weeks without ingesting anything? If this was the first century A.D. he’d be hailed as God on earth and an entire religion would ensue that would still be in practice today, people would pray to and baptize their offspring in his name… However because this is 2010 and we have science we understand this for what it is, a hoax. Indeed religions, all religions, are truly that stupidly based.
Vansonboy, Kapolei HI (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:54 PM)
wierd
Gentle So Temple City, CA (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:55 PM)
Let's dissect him. Or at least sequence his genome.
Charlie, Mpls (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:57 PM)
He must be the ideal dinner guest. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The world would be a much easier place to live in if hucksters like this were not roaming around.
David Corby (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:57 PM)
Its completely impossible, unless that dude is some sort or alien, or ghost.
mike mcgill, los angeles (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:58 PM)
makes me thirsty just thinking about this
Dave N, maryland (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:59 PM)
This could be an incredible discovery- is there another way to validate his claims?
Jennifer McFarlane, Tampa Bay, FLA. (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:59 PM)
** Its another way to make a no body a super star... SCAM
Tony - outside Chicago (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:00 PM)
Mr. Van Rooyen, where as you deal with the limited body and limited subject, True Yogis on the other hand deal with The Unlimited and they are NOT ordinarily touched by the limited [knowledge, cause and hence effects]. To 'Know' one ought to make observations, perhaps by locking the Yogi up [with his permission, otherwise you could become 'raisin'
!]. Of course, you need to know to discern wheat from its chaffe. 70 years is nothing compared to other instances found in the Hindu Scriptures. The name Prahlad may have connection to the Puranic Prahlad, one of the greatest devotee of Lord Vishnu.
TuriaState, Aurora, IL (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:01 PM)
Total BS.......send the discovery channel to investigate. What a load of crap.....come on look at this guy!
Jason, Fremont, CA (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:01 PM)
Bullshit...
Suresh AMATYA, New York, New York (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:02 PM)
So certainly someone was smart enough to weigh him before and after this 2 week period. Did he lose weight?
Marcia Jacobs Colorado Springs Co (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:04 PM)
I don't know why I clicked on this article, nor why MSNBC would be reporting on it. I'm a biomedical scientist and this is absolutely absurd.
WCW, Calhoun, GA (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:07 PM)
its true. i havent had food or water for 17 years and i feel fine. i just go out of my body and over to pizza hut, then come back into my body and thats the truth.
john doe, las vegas, nv (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:09 PM)
That is very impressive to go without food or water for 70 years straight.
Sabrina Jacob, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:12 PM)
obviously this scientist physician observer, Dr. Van Rooyen, is a disgrace to his profession because he is denying the basic scientific rule of observation--there are breatherators--my term may be wrong--who can subsist without eating or drinking--the good doctor should do thorough research and check it out--
jonnybee, vegas baby (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:16 PM)
Send a comment http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/10/2299480.aspx
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Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 7:00 PM PT
By Brian Alexander
http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/10/2299480.aspx
Prahlad Jani, an 82-year-old Indian yogi, is making headlines by claims that for the past 70 years he has had nothing -- not one calorie -- to eat and not one drop of liquid to drink. To test his claims, Indian military doctors put him under round-the-clock observation during a two-week hospital stay that ended last week, news reports say. During that time he didn’t ingest any food or water – and remained perfectly healthy, the researchers said.
But that’s simply impossible, said Dr. Michael Van Rooyen an emergency physician at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an associate professor at the medical school, and the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative – which focuses on aid to displaced populations who lack food and water.
Van Rooyen says that depending on climate conditions like temperature and humidity, a human could survive five or six days without water, maybe a day or two longer in extraordinary circumstances. We can go much longer without food – even up to three months if that person is taking liquids fortified with vitamins and electrolytes.
Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican convicted of firearms possession and imprisoned by the British, died in 1981 on the 66th day of his hunger strike. Gandhi was also known to go long stretches without food, including a 21-day hunger strike in 1932.
Sterling Hospitals / AFP - Getty Images file
Prahlad Jani was studied for two weeks.
Jani, dubbed "the starving yogi" by some, did have limited contact with water while gargling and periodically bathing, reported the news wire service AFP. While researchers said they measured what he spit out, Van Rooyen said he's clearly getting fluid somehow.
"You can hold a lot of water in those yogi beards. A sneaky yogi for certain," he said. "He MUST take in water. The human body cannot survive without it." The effects of food and water deprivation are profound, Van Rooyen explained. “Ultimately, instead of metabolizing sugar and glycogen [the body’s energy sources] you start to metabolize fat and then cause muscle breakdown. Without food, your body chemistry changes. Profoundly malnourished people autodigest, they consume their own body’s resources. You get liver failure, tachycardia, heart strain. You fall apart.”
The yogi, though, would already be dead from lack of hydration. If he really went without any liquids at all, his cardiovascular system would have collapsed. “You lose about a liter or two of water per day just by breathing,” Van Rooyen said. You don’t have to sweat, which the yogi claims he never does. That water loss results in thicker blood and a drop in blood pressure.
“You go from being a grape to a raisin,” Van Rooyen said and if you didn’t have a heart attack first, you’d die of kidney failure.
Comments
What this ogi is doing has been done by yogi's for millenia. It is an amazing feat in that it is real and it took this particular man an almost inconcievable of discipline to achieve. Our physicists are just beginning to skim the finest surface of understanding of our human potential and while going without food for so long may not seem to serve a purpose - it is one of many ways to make the journey inward that we all must make eventually. We are all connected and when one achieves the level of discipline and inward seeking that this man has - it is for all of us.
John Patton (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:27 PM)
My Bull $hit meter is pinging in the red zone on this one
us2insanmarcos@yahoo.com (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:27 PM)
What western medicine fails to recognize is that the human body has many secrets and capacities that few have explored. The human organism is not merely mechanical. And the capacity of the universe to surprise us with the unexpected should make modern doctors be more humble. For example: doctors dismissed germ theory as bunk just a 150 years ago. "Wash my hands? What rubbish." Be open minded and humble you masters of medicine and the knife!!
Chuck Henderson (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:28 PM)
Mabye theres a chees burger in that beard and a bottle of water under his chin?
Mark Seattle WA (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:29 PM)
This can be a real event where a person gains his energy from other sources which are not nutritional in the usual sense. A term sometimes used is "breathers" getting energy from the prana in the environment.
F, Jackson, MS (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:30 PM)
"sneaky yogi" lol
C Norris, AZ (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:31 PM)
Just another "breathairian... one who survives only by breathing air. This myth has been around a long time. Just wait long enough, and you'll see them sneaking in a twinky.
R W Arnold (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:31 PM)
We are spiritual being just having human experience..... and for many yogis that can transcend this dimension and exist in the 4th dimension which is beyond man's common understand.
It not just about logic or reality because logic and reality in the 4th dimension is the illusion.
It may truly be an example of mind over matter. These are things that enligtened being have been doing since the beginning of time...Jesus stated,"You will do things even greater than I".
Study Quantum Physics......
Dr. Elon Bomani
www.elonbomani.com
Dr. Elon Bomani, Missouri City, Tx. (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:32 PM)
Science, as a belief system
"But that’s simply impossible, said Dr. Michael Van Rooyen"
Evidence not withstanding.
Steve, Middletown, NY (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:38 PM)
Wow, the lengths people will go to get some attention. I suppose Jani has some higher calling so that's why he is depriving himself of food and drink. I couldn't or wouldn't want to go the weekend.
Jay F. (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:40 PM)
Simply ridiculous.
C.C. Upstate, NY (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:41 PM)
demons lie
don wall monroe la (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:42 PM)
India is full of phony magicians. What I want to know is this: What is his relationship to the "researchers" and why are they knowingly publicizing a fraud?
Eric, USA (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:42 PM)
What Dr. Michael Van Rooyen says is based on the science as we know it now. But the science today is like a monkey trying to reach the moon and not getting beyond the top of the trees.
I have personally witnessed the things in India that science CAN'T explain. I, thinking that I know it all based on science, challenged the validity of these phenomena and came out surrendering.
Dr. Van Rooyen knows some science based on physical laws of nature, but has no idea of the subtle laws of nature. He and the humanity has a long way to go before science and religion meet at one point.
Shanker (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:43 PM)
Is he drinking his own urine?
Daniel, Carthage, MS (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:43 PM)
What Dr. Michael Van Rooyen says is based on the science as we know it now. But the science today is like a monkey trying to reach the moon and not getting beyond the top of the trees.
I have personally witnessed the things in India that science CAN'T explain. I, thinking that I know it all based on science, challenged the validity of these phenomena and came out surrendering.
Dr. Van Rooyen knows some science based on physical laws of nature, but has no idea of the subtle laws of nature. He and the humanity has a long way to go before science and religion meet at one point.
Shanker (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:44 PM)
Does the Yogi urinate? When heated, does he sweat? Are there feces in his intestinal tract? If nobody in the two weeks found or checked for any of the above (and more), they were all in on the hoax in some way.
Barry (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:45 PM)
Is this the same Yogi that came up with the rope trick, or the milk that came from the elephants trunk?
Paul, Milwaukee, WI (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:49 PM)
This is nothing but bullshit. These so called 'yogis' are nothing but fraudsters.
John Doe, Seattle, Wash (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:49 PM)
I guess he's never taken a "crap or a piss" either? Huh? Why didn't they throw that in there?
Hey! Maybe he can get on "Dancing with the Stars"!!!!!!!!
raymond banner san antonio tx (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:52 PM)
Claimed he hasn’t eaten in 70 years? Was observed for 2 weeks without ingesting anything? If this was the first century A.D. he’d be hailed as God on earth and an entire religion would ensue that would still be in practice today, people would pray to and baptize their offspring in his name… However because this is 2010 and we have science we understand this for what it is, a hoax. Indeed religions, all religions, are truly that stupidly based.
Vansonboy, Kapolei HI (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:54 PM)
wierd
Gentle So Temple City, CA (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:55 PM)
Let's dissect him. Or at least sequence his genome.
Charlie, Mpls (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:57 PM)
He must be the ideal dinner guest. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The world would be a much easier place to live in if hucksters like this were not roaming around.
David Corby (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:57 PM)
Its completely impossible, unless that dude is some sort or alien, or ghost.
mike mcgill, los angeles (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:58 PM)
makes me thirsty just thinking about this
Dave N, maryland (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:59 PM)
This could be an incredible discovery- is there another way to validate his claims?
Jennifer McFarlane, Tampa Bay, FLA. (Monday, May 10, 2010 8:59 PM)
** Its another way to make a no body a super star... SCAM
Tony - outside Chicago (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:00 PM)
Mr. Van Rooyen, where as you deal with the limited body and limited subject, True Yogis on the other hand deal with The Unlimited and they are NOT ordinarily touched by the limited [knowledge, cause and hence effects]. To 'Know' one ought to make observations, perhaps by locking the Yogi up [with his permission, otherwise you could become 'raisin'
!]. Of course, you need to know to discern wheat from its chaffe. 70 years is nothing compared to other instances found in the Hindu Scriptures. The name Prahlad may have connection to the Puranic Prahlad, one of the greatest devotee of Lord Vishnu. TuriaState, Aurora, IL (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:01 PM)
Total BS.......send the discovery channel to investigate. What a load of crap.....come on look at this guy!
Jason, Fremont, CA (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:01 PM)
Bullshit...
Suresh AMATYA, New York, New York (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:02 PM)
So certainly someone was smart enough to weigh him before and after this 2 week period. Did he lose weight?
Marcia Jacobs Colorado Springs Co (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:04 PM)
I don't know why I clicked on this article, nor why MSNBC would be reporting on it. I'm a biomedical scientist and this is absolutely absurd.
WCW, Calhoun, GA (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:07 PM)
its true. i havent had food or water for 17 years and i feel fine. i just go out of my body and over to pizza hut, then come back into my body and thats the truth.
john doe, las vegas, nv (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:09 PM)
That is very impressive to go without food or water for 70 years straight.
Sabrina Jacob, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:12 PM)
obviously this scientist physician observer, Dr. Van Rooyen, is a disgrace to his profession because he is denying the basic scientific rule of observation--there are breatherators--my term may be wrong--who can subsist without eating or drinking--the good doctor should do thorough research and check it out--
jonnybee, vegas baby (Monday, May 10, 2010 9:16 PM)
Send a comment http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/10/2299480.aspx
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