Eli5: how are “feast and famine” animals able to eat massive amounts of food after not eating for months or years, but humans will get re-feeding syndrome if eating a lot after a fast?
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Some mammals are adapted to hibernation periods where their metabolic rate slows to a crawl, and kcal energy and water demands become far lower. In addition, when they rise from hibernation, they don’t immediately pig out, they start small and gradually wake their normal rhythm.
The main dangers of refeeding syndrome is in the shock of large amounts of food/drink when having none for at least a week(if you survived the no water part, which is unlikely). Its similar to dependent alcoholics that decide to go cold turkey. Since their brain has been flooded with alcohol that blocks many normal chemical signals, the brain has increased output of those chemicals in order to try and ‘punch through’ the alcohol. Suddenly removing this wall means that punch becomes deadly.
I work in catering for a hospital, and am well versed with specific diets for abdominal/surgical wards for post-op patients. Their surgeons will delicately avoid troubling their gut by sticking them on ‘clear fluid only’ diets(which doesn’t include milk btw) before graduating them up to ‘full fluids’ and then perhaps ‘low residue/low fiber’ after that. Slow and steady.
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