Indian yogi claims to have gone 70 years without food and water

[Tobin S.]

70 years without eating? 'Starving yogi' says it's true
Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 7:00 PM PT

by Brian Alexander

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.


More at the link including some pretty funny responses to this story. http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/10/2299480.aspx?GT1=43001

[realisticphish]

1. I believe I read somewhere

that he takes baths and "gargles"

[laconicsax]

2. They really just need to lock him in a room for a few days.

If he really doesn't need water, he'll be fine.

[realisticphish]

3. yeah

i volunteer to watch him. a small, locked room with a single viewing window, and no time outside, no showers, no nothing

[dmallind]

4. There's a reason they are called fakirs (yes I know it's not that reason) N/T

[Deep13]

5. Favorite comment...

"It's possible. In my 33 years of existence, I have never farted. I choose to keep this phenomenon to myself, until I receive a sign from alien beings. This revelation will be followed by the release of my new book that unlocks the secrets of the universe including but not limited to 'How not to fart', 'How to shoot your poop the length of two football fields', and 'How to have have an orgasm using only your eyelids and a pinkie toe'
Supertek, San Antonio, Texas (Monday, May 10, 2010 10:08 PM)"

It's a miracle!

[Warpy]

6. Other breatharians have been exposed as frauds

and this guy will be, too, once he's separated from his flacks and given an honest, hard look.

Back in the 60s, breatharianism by fakirs was "discovered" by the type of ascetic hippie who thought the macropsychotic ideal of nothing but brown rice was weighing them down. Most of them cracked within a couple of days of living on air as their tongues swelled and they developed other symptoms of extreme dehydration. The ones who didn't crack soon enough were hospitalized.

The sooner this guy is debunked, the better. Ascetics don't need another reason to kill themselves.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. To me, the real question is why such claims aren't simply dismissed

By intelligent people, anyway. Con men always make extreme claims - about health, wealth, politics, religion - and there are people who take it seriously because they see the con men as authority figures.

Maybe that's the interesting part: what is it about successful con men that makes people see them as authoritative? Personality, charisma, or the predisposition on the part of too many people to want an authority figure?

[charlie]

8. Also, frauds promise what they hope to their bones is true

Just affirm their yearnings and you're an authority.

Oddly, there's also an apocalyptic strain running through a lot of them, which is a little schizo. They're "creating reality", yet think the world is heading for a crescendo of calamity. Which is it?

I get accused of rejecting the stuff because I'm some sort of perverse contrarian, but that's not so. I'd be tickled if some woo claims were real. Food and water forevermore non-essential? Visualize the good life and have materials and scintillating experiences drop into my lap? Sign me up! Now!