Why is refeeding slowly necessary after a long term fast?
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The big problem has to do with how your body stores and uses energy. It uses phosphates, in the form of a molecule called ATP, to supply the energy for the things your cells do. But it also uses the phosphate to store nutrients in cells. After a long fast, your body is depleted of both nutrients and phosphate. If you refeed quickly, your body will try to use and store all those nutrients quickly, which sucks up all the phosphate, so it can’t be used to make ATP. Without ATP, your body doesn’t have the energy it needs to do things (notably breathing). There are other things going on, such as electrolyte issues, as the other answer says
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